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UPDATED: Exelon kills offer to acquire NRG
By gabesemenza in Crowdsourcing
July 21, 2009

UPDATED NEWS: Exelon terminates offer to acquire NRG

An Exelon press release:

Exelon Corporation (NYSE:EXC) today announced that, effective immediately, it is terminating its pending offer to acquire all of the outstanding shares of NRG Energy, Inc. common stock at a fixed exchange ratio of 0.545 of a share of Exelon common stock for each share of NRG common stock.

Exelon took this action in light of the proxy vote results announced today at the NRG annual meeting.

“The NRG shareholders have spoken, and Exelon will move on. We wish NRG and its owners well,” said John Rowe, chairman and chief executive officer of Exelon.

The company said it believed it could have been successful in completing the transaction, but it was unwilling to raise its price to a level that would undermine Exelon’s own value proposition.

Rowe added, “Now we can redouble our focus on Exelon’s stand-alone growth opportunities. We have the nation’s largest low-carbon nuclear fleet, and our plan to expand our nuclear output through uprates provides even greater upside from carbon legislation. We believe our long-term growth proposition remains the best in the industry.”

VICTORIA REACTION: Dale Fowler, president of the Victoria Economic Development Corp., said he's hopeful today's decisions will help Exelon to focus on the Victoria County plant build. He tempered his optimism, though.

“With respect to our project, I know this decision won’t impact the national economy and federal loan guarantess, and that’s what we need to get the project back on track, in my opinion," Fowler said.

BREAKING NEWS FROM EARLIER TODAY:

NRG Energy stockholders voted resoundingly to re-elect the company’s board member nominees, and against Exelon Nuclear’s bid to expand the board, the company announced this morning.

NRG bases the announcement on a preliminary vote count at today’s annual stockholders meeting.

“NRG stockholders understood that this vote was all about value and they voted overwhelmingly to send a message that Exelon’s current offer was unfair to NRG stockholders,” said David Crane, NRG’s president and chief executive officer. “We want to thank our stockholders for their support today.”

Exelon began hostile takeover attempts after NRG declined a late 2008 bid to merge the companies. Exelon hoped to expand NRG’s board of directors by its hand-picked nine nominees, and thus further spur takeover attempts.

NRG executives, however, said Exelon’s bid undervalued the company.

What are your thoughts about all this?

Thanks for the input,

Gabe Semenza / Advocate public service editor

Comments


  • Monkey Monkey Report a ViolationReport a Violation
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    A smart decision by/for NRG, but a potential disaster for our region. The odds are that Exelon will now focus on the Guadalupe River project. There has to be someone within Victoria that can connect the dots between water, drought and nuclear development and arrive at the only logical conclusion - there is simply not enough water!

    July 21, 2009 at 9:16 p.m.

  • onestar onestar Report a ViolationReport a Violation
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    This drought is a disaster for all of us. However hopefully it will put the final nail in the coffin of the Exelon nuclear project Victoria. there ain't enough water for all of us.

    July 21, 2009 at 4:41 p.m.