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Recent News
Liberty has become a
leading source of expertise in examining the effects of
holding-company financial distress on utility subsidiaries. Liberty
has just completed a major examination of how business problems and
the resulting poor
financial performance at NUI Corporation have affected utility
structure, governance, finance, and operations. The executive
summary of Liberty’s report on these issues can be found
here.
Liberty also conducted an evaluation of the electric and gas
transmission and distribution systems of NorthWestern Energy in
Montana. This review focused on NorthWestern's performance and
practices in the areas of T&D inspection, maintenance, and
replacement and upgrading of equipment. Liberty also evaluated the
company's system peformance, collection and use of reliability
information, work priority systems, and capital and O&M
expenditures.
Liberty has also
recently filed
testimony before the Arizona
Corporation Commission addressing the benefits and risks of a
leveraged buyout of UniSource, the holding company that operates
three utility businesses in Arizona. The largest is TEP, the
electricity-distribution utility in the Tucson area. This buyout,
which will take a major investor-owned utility holding company
private, raises important public-policy questions about how regulators
should examine customer implications in the transfer of an already-highly-leveraged company with a long history of financial weakness.


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