RadioWallStreet
Tuesday, October 17




Enron Wholesale & Retail 
Business Hits Record Level 

Enron beat the Street as earnings climbed 31% thanks to online energy 
trading. Third quarter revenue soared 154% to $30 billion. Enron Pres/COO 
Jeffrey Skilling tells RadioWallStreet.com he believes crude oil prices will 
begin to fall in 2001. (ENE) 

http://www.radiowallstreet.com/NASApp/RWS/Index?Accept=C 





Energy Trading, EnronOnline Help Enron Top 3rd Quarter Estimates
By Christina Cheddar
Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

10/17/2000
Dow Jones News Service
(Copyright (c) 2000, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)

NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- After once again helping Enron Corp. (ENE) to top Wall 
Street's expectations, the importance of Enron's energy trading operations 
was further cemented in the third quarter. 
Enron's third-quarter earnings rose 31% to $292 million, or 34 cents a share, 
from $223 million, or 27 cents a share, before items, a year ago. 
Third-quarter revenue rose 154% to $30 billion from $11.84 billion.
In the year-ago period, Enron's net income was $290 million, or 35 cents a 
share, after a gain of $345 million, or 44 cents a share, on the sale of its 
stake in Enron Oil & Gas Co. (EOG), and a charge of $278 million, or 36 cents 
a share, on its MTBE asset. 
According to First Call/Thomson Financial, analysts were expecting Enron to 
earn 32 cents a share in the latest third quarter. 
The key driver of the company's performance was its wholesale business, which 
includes EnronOnline and commodity sales, and which has transformed Enron 
from a gas pipeline company to the world's largest energy trader. 
In the third quarter, the wholesale business just had "a stunning quarter," 
said Enron President Jeff Skilling. 
Revenue from Enron's wholesale energy operations and services unit, which 
includes EnronOnline and commodity sales, more than doubled to $28.15 billion 
from $11.06 billion. 
Income before interest, minority interest and taxes, or IBIT, in the third 
quarter rose 66% to $627 million from $378 million a year ago. 
During the latest period, physical deliveries of energy commodities grew 64% 
to 53.5 trillion British thermal units, Enron said. 
EnronOnline, the company's Internet-based transaction system, is driving the 
growth of the wholesale segment, said Raymond Niles, an analyst at Salomon 
Smith Barney. 
Currently, more than 60% of the Enron's wholesale business occurs through 
EnronOnline. As of Oct. 11, EnronOnline had executed more than 350,000 
transactions online, totaling $183 billion of gross value since its inception 
in late 1999. 
EnronOnline, which initially bought and sold natural gas, electricity, 
petrochemicals, and bandwidth, has expanded to other commodity areas such as 
metals and pulp and paper. 
J.P. Morgan analyst Anatol Feygin supports Enron's decision to expand to 
other commodities. "The only limit (to expanding to other commodities) is 
intellectual capital," Feygin said. 
He estimates that the North American steel business is a $35 billion 
business, while pulp and paper is about $150 billion. 

At least part of the success that Enron had during the third quarter was the 
result of price volatility in California's deregulated energy market. 
However, the company wouldn't specify what it earned in the state. 
During the third quarter, utilities in the Golden State paid near-record 
rates for electricity as higher demand pushed the power grid to the brink. 
"The uncertainty and the volatility that we have been seeing in the 
electricity and the gas market has been beneficial to Enron," said Enron's 
Skilling. 
California's situation is rather unique, he said. Skilling expects 
Californian electricity markets will improve as supply and demand fall into 
balance and other technical market questions are resolved. 
Although Enron posted strong earnings across the board, it is getting clearer 
that the company will look to divest itself of some of its international 
assets. 
According to a source familiar with the company, Enron recently completed an 
analysis of its assets with the intent of identifying underperforming assets 
and improving capital efficiency. As a result of the analysis, some assets 
were marked for sale. 
Skilling admitted the company would like to monetize some of its 
international assets, but he wouldn't say which assets are on the auction 
block. 
However, it is unlikely Enron will sell its international gas pipelines 
because the assets receive a solid rate of return, Skilling said. 
One asset that could be divested is Enron's Dabhol Power Project in 
Maharashtra, India, said analysts. Other power plants in Italy and Turkey 
also seem like logical candidates for sale. 
"I think it makes a lot of sense for Enron," said Salomon's Niles. "Enron is 
moving into markets where they are relying on intellectual capital rather 
than physical capital," he said. Following this logic, assets such as the 
India power plant don't make as much sense as they once did. 
In some cases, the international assets are in countries that didn't open to 
competition as expected, explained Zach Wagner, an analyst at Edward Jones. 
Since deregulation has been fueling Enron's growth, it only makes sense that 
the company concentrate on open markets. 
Furthermore, Wagner believes the money Enron will raise in the asset sales 
could be re-deployed to fund projects such as the company's venture with 
Blockbuster Inc. (BBI) to provide movies on demand via high-speed telephone 
lines.

Copyright , 2000 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 



Nick Utton Joins The New Power Company as Managing Director and Chief 
Marketing Officer

10/17/2000
PR Newswire
(Copyright (c) 2000, PR Newswire)

GREENWICH, Conn., Oct. 17 /PRNewswire/ -- The New Power Company(TM) (NYSE: 
NPW), the first national residential and small business energy provider, 
today announced that Nick Utton has joined the Company as Managing Director, 
Chief Marketing Officer, reporting to the President and Chief Executive 
Officer, H. Eugene Lockhart. 
Prior to joining The New Power Company, Mr. Utton, 43, was Chief Marketing 
Officer of MasterCard International. Mr. Utton joined MasterCard in 1996 and 
played an integral role in the creation and development of MasterCard's 
successful "Priceless" advertising campaign. He was responsible for brand 
building initiatives and marketing integration that included overseeing 
global advertising, product development programs and sponsorships and 
promotions.
James Badum, 40, who had served as Chief Marketing Officer prior to Mr. 
Utton's arrival, is assuming the role of Managing Director, Strategic 
Planning. 
During his career Mr. Utton has served as Senior Vice President, 
International Marketing at Revlon International, Marketing Director for 
Cadbury Schweppes as well as various product management positions at 
Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, Richardson-Vicks Inc. and Unilever. 
Mr. Utton holds a Bachelor of Commerce in Business Administration and 
Marketing from the University of Natal in South Africa and a Bachelor of 
Commerce Honors Degree in Business Economics from the University of South 
Africa. Mr. Utton and his family are residents of Greenwich, Connecticut. 
The New Power Company was formed in May 2000 to provide electricity and 
natural gas directly to households and small businesses in the deregulated 
energy marketplace. The company draws on the expertise, experience and market 
strength of such industry leaders as IBM, AOL and Enron to bring savings and 
efficiencies to energy consumers.


/CONTACT: Gael Doar, Director of Communications of The New Power Company, 
203-531-0400, ext. 658, or gdoar@newpower.com/ 13:46 EDT 

Copyright , 2000 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 


   BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT

    Date      October 17, 2000
    Time      09:30 AM - 10:00 AM
    Station   CNNfn
    Location  Network
    Program   Market Call


              Alan Chernoff, anchor:

              And certainly we do have some encouraging numbers this
              morning from Enron, posting very impressive numbers.  The
              nation's-largest buyer and seller of electricity and
              natural gas says revenues jumped one hundred fifty-four
              percent in the third quarter to thirty billion dollars.

              Enron did earn thirty-four cents a share, beating estimates
              by two cents and the year ago quarter by seven cents.  The
              company has shed its image as a stodgy utility.  It's
              building a broadband telecom network, as well as beefing up
              its on-line presence to trade everything from metals to
              coal.  Investors have been responding positively, pushing
              the stock up as high as ninety.  In fact, the stock this
              morning trading at eighty-two I see, up two points.
              (Graphic:  Enron (ENE) one-year stock chart)

              And joining us right now from Houston to talk about the
              latest numbers and tell us what other changes are in store
              is Jeff Skilling, president and chief operating officer
              over at Enron.

              Jeff, congratulations this morning on your earnings report.
              So much has been made about your move into broadband but
              that's one area where you are still losing money, twenty
              million during the last quarter, correct?

              Jeff Skilling (President, Chief Operating Officer; Enron):
              Well, David, it's a start-up business so we expect that
              over the next couple of years we will lose money in our
              bandwidth business.  But we see in two, three years out in
              the future that that's likely to be a very significant
              business for us.

              Chernoff:  Mr. Skilling, let me add a question about the
              Internet business because that is one area where Enron does
              seem to be doing extremely well.  You guys are trading
              energy right now, you're trading a whole bunch of other
              products right over the Internet.  How's it going and
              what sort of expansion do you see over there?

              Skilling:  Well, as you mentioned, we had a big, big
              up-tick in revenues and I think a large portion of that is
              due to our on-line transaction business.  Since we brought
              it on-line last November--November 29, we've done over a
              hundred and eighty-five billion dollars of transactions, so
              it's been a big piece of the activity this year.

              David Sowerby (Guest Host, Loomis, Sayles):  Je--Jeff, the
              remarkable performance of your stock price in the last year
              and a half, two years, your price-to-earnings ratio is
              about--almost sixty times earnings.  The average utility is
              trading at about twenty-five times earnings.  What do you
              tell the investor today who's thinking about adding to
              Enron with--with such--with such a high P/E ratio relative
              to your peer group?  (Graphic:  Enron Corp.  *Market Cap:
              $59.3b *52-week high:  90 *52-week low:  34 7/8)

              Skilling:  Well, a--a big portion of the P/E ratio is the
              result of our broadband business.  If you take out the
              portion of our--our equity valuation that's related to
              broadband, which is not generating any earnings, and look
              at just say our wholesale business, our wholesale business
              is selling for about a twenty-five to thirty multiple.  So,
              we think, given the growth rates that we're seeing in the
              energy business and our wholesale business, that we have
              some significant upside on that valuation which we think
              will push our stock up overall.  (Graphic:  Enron ??
              Markets and trades:  *Electricity *Natural Gas *Other
              commodities *99 revenues:  $40b)

              Chernoff:  Well, Jeff, let's talk about that broadband
              aspect 'cause as you say, the market certainly is giving
              you a lot of credit for that but at the same time, over the
              past few weeks, there's been a debate on Wall Street as to
              whether we might actually be entering a broadband glut.  Is
              that a fantasy?  (Graphic:  Enron ??  *No.  1 U.S.
              buyer/seller of natural gas (Provides energy consulting,
              construction & engineering services))

              Skilling:  No, I think that's a very real possibility.
              (Graphic:  Enron ??  *Subsidiary Enron Broadband Services
              building national fiber-optic network)  And, in fact, we've
              designed our business to take advantage of that.  You know,
              if you--if you look at the history of Enron, we created
              markets for natural gas and electricity when those markets
              were in massive over-supply.  And we some of the same
              characteristics in the--in the broadband business which is
              why we've begun building the capability to transact real
              time bandwidth so that when the market prices do decline,
              and I believe they'll decline pretty significantly, we'll
              be in a position to make that--that lower cost capacity
              available to our customers.  (Graphic:  Enron ??
              Commodities traded:  *Paper *Coal *Chemicals *Fiber-optic
              bandwidth)

              Chernoff:  And in terms of data storage, I know you're
              looking at that area.  Are you guys pla--planning to go
              head-to-head with EMC?  What's going on over there?
              (Graphic:  Enron ??  *32,000 miles of gas pipeline
              (Fortune Magazine:  Ranked "Most Innovative Co." past 5
              yrs))

              Skilling:  Well, it just seems like more and more
              businesses are turning into commodity businesses and that's
              what we do.  We create markets for commodities and I--I
              wouldn't be at all surprised if you see data storage turn
              into a commodity where you'll be able to buy and sell it
              just like you buy and sell pork bellies on the--on the
              Exchange.  (Graphic:  Enron ??  Top Competitors:  *AEP
              *Duke Energy *UtiliCorp)

              Chernoff:  OK.  Jeff Skilling of Enron.  Thank you very
              much and congratulations on a great earnings report.

              Skilling:  Thank you.

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