By Tom Sanzillo and Cathy Kunkel —
Yesterday we published a report titled “FirstEnergy: A Major Utility Seeks a Subsidized Turnaround,” in which we chronicled a series of management failures and executive policies that have placed FirstEnergy Corp. in serious trouble.
We accompanied publication of the report with a blog post offering some key findings. We’re blogging all week on our FirstEnergy research, and today our post focuses on the company’s weak numbers.
Here’s the gist: the company’s financial condition has deteriorated since it merged with Allegheny Energy in 2011, and its key financial metrics are on a downward trajectory that stems from the fact that FirstEnergy’s business—the sale of electricity—is weak. FirstEnergy is suffering from a declining stock price, declining revenues, declining net income and rising debt levels.
What’s driving these bad numbers? The company’s failure to consistently bring recurring revenues into alignment with recurring expenses—and its over-reliance on stop-gap, short-term measures.
While the industry as a whole is challenged by low natural-gas prices and the transition from coal-fired generation, most large investor-owned utilities are navigating these challenges. This is reflected in industry credit ratings. In November 2013, for instance, Moody’s placed 167 U.S. utilities on ratings-upgrade review, citing a favorable outlook for the industry as a whole. FirstEnergy was conspicuously absent from that list. Likewise, as Standard and Poor’s this year upgraded the utility sector from BBB to BBB+, it left FirstEnergy among only six companies with a BBB- or below rating.
FirstEnergy’s stock performance has been dismal, down more than 30 percent from its peak in mid-2012. This contrasts with a backdrop of modest economic growth and rising stock values. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 33 percent[update as needed] since mid-2012, and the SNL Energy Index has risen similarly.
FirstEnergy revenues dropped to $14.9 billion in 2013 from $16.1 billion in 2011. Net income plummeted during that time, to $392 million from $869 million. The company’s short-term and long-term debt has soared, and its coal-powered holdings have steadily lost value.
How have company executives responded? Partly by slashing dividends and masking imbalance in revenues and expenses with a series of one-time resource infusions, a strategy that strongly suggests FirstEnergy’s business model is financially unsustainable.
Indeed, one of the more sobering takeaways from our research is that FirstEnergy lacks a sensible longer-term turnaround strategy that would bring recurring revenues in line with recurring expenses. The company seems to be counting instead on a strategy of subsidies and bailouts that–while costly to ratepayers–will not solve FirstEnergy’s underlying problems.
We’ll talk more about the company’s questionable political and regulatory behavior later in the week. But first we want to touch on FirstEnergy’s flawed forward-looking strategy. That will be the subject of our next post.
Tom Sanzillo is IEEFA’s director of finance. Cathy Kunkel is an IEEFA research fellow.
