At the time, TXU was the vertically integrated giant of Texas electricity — from generation to transmission to retail sales. Sooner rather than later, investors were warned, the company was going to have to split.
And then there was the astronomical sum KKR was offering. Built into that offer was a natural gas price assumption that was "higher than the future prices TXU Corp. management believed were likely, taking into account the inherently unpredictable factors that impact long-term natural gas prices," the shareholder literature read.
Broken down, KKR's bid per share was 25 percent higher than what TXU's stock was actually trading for at closing. The message from TXU management was as shrewd as it was unmistakable: There's trouble ahead in the Texas electricity market, and these guys are gonna get hosed. Take the money and run!
And boy, did they ever. Wilder walked away with a $270 million bonus. On February 26, 2007, KKR announced the merger with TXU, now rechristened Energy Future Holdings. Moody's Investors Service, a company that provides financial research on commercial and government bonds, was waiting with a bucket of cold water. It panned the deal, observing that "private equity investors do not represent natural long-term owners of the businesses and assets of TXU."
Moody's all but scolded TXU management for its fixation on the company's stock price and its heedlessness toward the actual bricks-and-mortar business. The credit rater foreshadowed trouble ahead: "While Moody's acknowledges the board's fiduciary duties to shareholders to maximize value, we also assume that the board is cognizant of the significantly increased risks of defaulting on its future debt obligations and the ramifications such an event could have on the assets and services provided by the company's businesses."
Simply put, the odds that Energy Future would fail to pay off its huge debts were better than good. If it defaulted, the fate of the company was anybody's guess.
For a short time, at least, it looked as though Energy Future might prove Moody's wrong. Analysts predicted gas prices would hover at around $8 per mmBTU through 2011.
But forces were conspiring to blow the bottom out of the gas futures market.
Geoffrey Gay was general counsel for the Cities Aggregation Power Project, a group with more than 100 member cities pooling their resources to negotiate lower, more stable bulk prices for electricity. He was getting ready to ink a deal and lock in current prices with Energy Future until he saw natural gas' downward trajectory. "If we had done that deal in '07, we'd probably be paying twice the amount today than the market price," he said. "And that wouldn't have been smart."
Between July and October 2008, prices fell by more than 50 percent. By the summer of 2009, natural gas was going for $3 per mmBTU, far below the $6.35 Energy Future needed to break even.
That year, new drilling on North Texas' Barnett Shale flooded the market with gas. Repairs to Gulf Coast infrastructure were gradually relieving the bottleneck created by the hurricane. And an economic downturn dampened consumer demand for electricity. Coupled with the increasing regulatory attention to the prodigious emissions of coal-fired power plants, it was, without a doubt, Energy Future's sweaty nightmare scenario. Back when Texas' electricity market was regulated, utilities were guaranteed a certain rate of return. But after it deregulated in 2002, the state went to an energy-only market in which generators recoup the cost of investment in new power plants only through the wholesale price of electricity. Leveraged utilities like Luminant needed the high wholesale price of electricity and the low cost of running coal-fired plants to finance a mountain of merger debt. KKR had bet big on the high price of natural gas. And it bet wrong.
As Energy Future put it in its own Securities and Exchange Commission filing, the company's "substantial leverage, resulting in part from debt incurred to finance the Merger," required it to direct a sizable portion of its shrinking revenues to principal and interest payments. Take 2011, for example. The company took in $7 billion in revenue. Then it turned around and paid $4 billion in interest. Some 60 percent of its revenue for that period went to pay the interest accruing on the merger debt. (The industry average is 6 percent, according to the Edison Electric Institute, a national association of shareholder-owned power companies.)
The effect was to "limit its ability to react to changes in the economy or the industry ..." In other words, Energy Future wasn't a nimble speedboat, poised to react to obstacles at a moment's notice. It was the Titanic. As a result, 2009 is the only year the company has logged a profit.
With wholesale power prices tanking, Energy Future wrote the value of its assets down — including the coal-fired plants that once caused KKR to salivate — by $8 billion in 2008. It announced a second write-down of $4 billion in 2010.
Its investors must have greeted each SEC filing with growing alarm. By 2009, the amount left over after adding up all the company's assets and subtracting its debts was zero. Actually, it was less than zero. It was more like negative $3.2 billion. By 2011, investors' held stock was worth negative $7.7 billion.
Energy Future worked diligently to whittle debt and extend maturities through a series of debt swaps. Debt holders were willing to take a hit on the principal amount to keep the company afloat and negotiate for better terms. Standard & Poor's characterized these exchanges as the "distressed" flailing of a company in default by another name.
While I have no love for the power company, the EPA is out of control. They are costing us billions in fines that companies have to pass on to us and the EPA is responsible for the loss of many jobs. They are power hungry and full of themselves....like putting real bullets in Barney Fife's revolver.
1.) Any notion of blaming the deregulated electricity market as it stands, or on investment guys for the problems plaguing Energy Future Holdings (at this point) as a problem that threatens blackouts and generation shortages is just folly. TXU was a mess beforehand, and they have been a mess since from the top down based on management, bad decisions, poor understanding the market, etc. The debt issue is huge, and one that I don't see how they'll ever be able to get out of successfully, although there is a very real possibility that they'll be seen as "too big to fail" on some level. That being said, as another poster pointed out, if/when they go belly up someone else will come in and buy their assets cheap and likely run them better anyway. So it's hardly a fear that this is going to cause us to lose generation or be without power.
2.) 2.) The EPA guidelines being passed down are complete garbage, and I don't think they were as obvious as this article would have you believe. For every "industry insider" that said they should have known what was coming, I could probably find 3 that were shocked, and not just people at Energy Future Holdings, but also at NRG, Xcel, etc. They're a real issue. But no, they aren't to blame for Texas's power problems.
3.) 3.) I'm sick of the myth that these people keep throwing out that Texans are paying some of the highest electricity rates in the country, as well as how deregulated rates compare with the regulated areas of Texas as well. If people in deregulated are paying high rates, it is THEIR choice and because they haven't leveraged the market or shopped for competitive rates. I've debunked this repeatedly. 50% of the people in deregulated areas are still with their incumbent providers paying absurdly high prices and won't flex the options the market provides them. The data used in this article is from the EIA and is horribly flawed, as it only measures state by state, and doesn't take into account people who pay more when they don't. The rates available in deregulated areas of Texas are the 3rd cheapest int he United States right now.
4.)4.) The BIGGEST issue here, barely covered in this article until the end, is the power generation assets and the discussion of raising the market cap to lure in new investment. I wrote a big piece on this on Wednesday. This is where people should be furious. The Texas generation issues are very real, and anyone paying attention saw them coming around 2005 when the population of Texas starting exploding and no new generation was being built...even when Natural Gas prices were favorable. And now they're extremely inhibitive. This is the problem that people have been sitting on their hands and ignoring, and this is the real problem...not the EPA or Energy Future Holding's problems. There's been no problems encouraging the generation of wind plants using subsidies and money. Of course, wind generation doesn't blow consistently or when Texas actually needs it, such as the sweltering summer. Deregulation has worked wonders for THAT kind of inconsistent generation, so pointing the finger at the same system as being at fault for a lack of natural gas generation plants is silly and hypocritical. The problems, as always, stem from political issues.
The discussion of raising the market cap should be a huge topic right now, but it's being ignored. Raising the cap from $3k to $4500 this summer, and eventually to $7500 doesn't guarantee new generation, it just might encourage it. What is does guarantee is that EVERYONE will be paying more. And doing it this summer feels like another POLITICAL move by the PUC Commissioners to cover their own backsides.
I live in Garland. We had *one* - count 'em, one - rolling blackout at my house during the Feb 2011 freeze. Hurray for Garland Power and Light!
No, I don't work for them.
A few observations.
One reason municipally owned and other public utilities are bringing generation online is to avoid the prospect of their service areas transitioning to open access. What wasn't stated is that they are able to sell excess electricity into the grid and reap the benefits of the ERCOT generation bid stack.
The statement, "Deregulation, we were told, would open the market up to competition, driving down prices for the ratepayer. That didn't happen. In fact, prices rose. Dallasites and Houstonians, in particular, have paid some of the highest electricity bills in the country." is inherently incorrect. Electricity prices are the lowest they have ever been and research will bear that statement out regardless how you want to spin it. What has increased are the distribution provider costs which is monitored and approved by the PUCT.
The statement, "And when gas prices fell as the Barnett Shale glutted the market, rates paid by Texans living outside of deregulated areas fell by twice as much as those inside." is also incorrect. I know because I receive service from a Coop and my prices right now are approximately 30% higher than what I could get if I were to have access to open access market.
In relation to generation capacity, what you are witnessing is the generation sector holding the market at ransom via the legislature and PUCT until they receive some form of capacity payments (i.e. subsidies) because they dislike an energy only market. Known as ICAP in the eastern markets, not one generation plant has been built, though consumers have shelled out hundreds of millions of dollars for the sake of perceived system reliability. Ask for a written guarantee that if price signals are reached that each generator will build a new plant and see what kind of response you receive.
Perhaps a little more research would benefit the overall picture of what is really going on behind the scenes.
The fact your COOP is 30% higher than the market price is indicative they are burning has purchases made before the dramatic fall of natural gas prices between 2007 and now. Many Municipal operated utilities and COOP's made the mistake of buying a full service contract for unusually long terms (5-10 years or more in some cases) at gas prices that were off the peak high of $13-$14 per MMBTU in 2007, but significantly higher than today. Bottom line, natural gas drives the price of energy in Texas. That price is crazy low at the moment due to a variety of market forces, and when that price goes up again, so will the cost of energy in Texas. Deregulation hasn't accomplished what it said it would. It isn't because the principles of a free market are wrong, it is because the folks making the money have no incentive to provide the lowest price, just a price low enough to beat the next highest retail energy producer. In otherwords the pricing is now cost + the highest profit I can make, rather than the previous model of cost + a set return. There are times when a deregulated market will produce cheaper energy than a regulated market, but more often than not, a regulated market is cheaper when it comes to consumable commodities.
Before de-regulation, when TXU was an'integrated' utility, residential rates were around 8-8.5%......in the 70's and 80's rates at 7.5% were not unheard of....so, tell me again, how is de-regulation supposed to help me.....all Wilder did was destroy a once pround and respected Electric Company that had consistent AAA ratings and provide good returns for their investors
Comparing back 30 to 40 years ago is not really comparing apples to apples to today's environment, however even with today's operating cost you can today sign up for electric service for 12 months at 7.5 cents / kWh all in which means the electric portion of that rate is actually around 4.5 cents / kWh. If one were to look around a little more you could, today, actually get an all in price of 6.2 or approximately 3.2 cents / kWh for the electric portion of the charge. Its all about choice and options. Based on my experience the prices of the 70's & 80's normally didn't reflect the all in value so in the examples you provided I'd suggest that you are seeing roughly a 40% savings in price / cost to you for the 12 month offer and roughly 57% for the other offer I reference for just the electricity portion of a like bill. Hope that helps shed some light on the general subject of electric prices. If it helps I received my Coop bill today and my average price came in at 10.06 cents / kWh. Which means that sense I do not have choice I'm paying roughly 34% more in cost than what I could get if I had choice.
Looks like gross miss management fueled by greed egged on by our politicians here in Texas. I would gripe to my elected officials but they are the foxes guarding the hen house.
One would think that Enron would have been a warning on this not a business model. KKR-can you say “claw back”? To our politicians can you say long prison terms?
Everybody involved in this needs to go to jail for a long time. You can bet your ass all the TXU meter readers and linemen are about to lose their retirement and their health care while the New York jerks at KKR are toasting themselves at three martini lunches. Kirk and Baker can go fuck themselves for this bullshit.
what a load of crap. Just fix your outdated and broken plants/equipment instead of driving around a jalopy like the rest of us non-corporation 'people' have to do. You shouldn't blame the EPA for your issues any more than I should blame Texas when and if I fail my yearly vehicular inspection. Energy companies are not exempt from 'cost of living' expenses and that includes maint., compliance and repairs. And by the way, if companies were worried about polluting the environment as much as they should be, we wouldn't need to waste money on imposing and enforcing EPA regulations. The EPA is awesome.
excuses are like assholes and everybody's got one. these greedy lazy lyin' worthless assholes have been takin' lotsa money from us for not doin' their jobs.
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