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.