Posted on 07/08/2009 5:44:07 AM PDT by Freeport
(Fortune Magazine) -- David Crane, CEO of NRG Energy and a father of five, was standing in a stubby cornfield in Bucks County, Pa., one windy evening last October when his BlackBerry began to stir. He checked his in-box, but he didn't respond, not right away. It was Sunday night, and he was on an outing with his family, waiting in line for a Halloween hayride. Nor did he respond an hour later on his way to the Amtrak station to catch a train to Washington, D.C. How could he, when he drives a Mini Cooper with a stick shift? You need both hands to manage a car like that. So it wasn't until after nine at night, having found a quiet corner of the waiting room behind a Dunkin' Donuts kiosk, that Crane finally got around to calling back John Rowe.
Rowe, CEO of Exelon Corp. (EXC, Fortune 500), picked up Crane's call at his big-windowed aerie in Chicago's Chase Tower, 54 stories above the Loop. Rowe told Crane that his board had met that afternoon, and he had some news: Exelon, the country's biggest electric utility, was hereby offering to buy NRG (NRG, Fortune 500), the country's fastest-growing independent electricity merchant -- it sells wholesale power to utilities -- for stock in a deal worth $6.2 billion. Term sheet to follow, press release within the hour. "Offer" was a euphemism; this was a hostile act.
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
It's called "pulling over to the side of the road."
Looks like a good read....
Bump
It's called not letting the cell phone become your master.
A quick search on OpenSecrets tells who the good guy isn’t.
So does a visit to CampaignMoney.com.
Crane gave more than $57,000 for the 2008 elections, only $2000 of that went to a Republican, Pete Domenici (R-NJ).
As well, he has been an open advocate and supporter of the Tax and Crap program, and even authored an article touting it’s wonderful benefits.
And THAT’S why his company NRG is getting the BILLIONS in funding from US, through zero-bama, for his BS “vision”. It has NOTHING to do with “value”, by my way of looking at it.
How you handicap the outcome depends on how you view the broader prospects for the economy. V-shaped cycle, you think? Advantage NRG, which as a wholesale power merchant with ambitious growth plans would benefit disproportionately from a sharp, sustainable recovery; Exelon would have to boost its bid or walk away. U- or L-shaped? Advantage to the bigger, better capitalized Exelon, whose willingness to pay up for a growth company in hard times may look better and better to NRG's battered shareholders the longer the downturn lingers.
Well Obamanomics sure isn't going to produce a "sharp, sustainable recovery",
so if this analysis is correct, NRG loses and Exelon wins.
I'm not convinced of the good guy-bad guy analysis however. It may be that Rowe sees something more than that reported by the author, his (Rowe's) "value" declaration, like seeing an "in" to clean coal tech, or broadening of resource base, etc. So he may be more "visionary" than indicated
But I agree with the author it is about a V or L economic future. The L is the road to big gov't - big business dominance; academics might call it (mistakenly) fascism, but is really just statism, static placeholding while the venturesome, more dynamic world outside passes you by.
To me that is what the emancipation of the internet is all about.
That too.....
BUMP for later reading...
I would say it’s having the good instincts of a CEO. Crane was right. If Rowe couldn’t come back with an offer in a week, then something is wrong.
I know a lot of people at the South Texas Project will quit if Exelon takes over. Their system of managing people is not very pleasant to experience, especially for engineers.
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