OK, I get it. “Public ownership” in this case means the members of the public that owned the stock. I thought that “public” meant that the government or other entity held some ownership.
Yes, TXU was an investor owned utility. They’ve had a lot of layoffs trying to make the bottom line look good for this sale, but quality and reliability have really slipped in the last few months. Customer service is also bad, although not as bad as Verizon.