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Ontario Power Generation is looking to become one of the top 10 power generators in the U.S. and expects to meet this goal by making a slew of power plant acquisitions in the MAIN to Maine northeastern quadrant of the U.S., says Wayne Bingham, executive v.p. and cfo. The company plans to finance the push through the sale of part of its 26,000 MW Ontario generation portfolio. Utility analysts and industry data suggests that to become a top-10 U.S. generator OPG would need to acquire some 20 GW of capacity south of the border. Exelon, the largest generator in the U.S., has 44 GW of installed generation.

Enron is aggressively courting energy companies to find a potential buyer of Northern Natural Gas, the pipeline business it sold to Dynegy, says an executive familiar with its plans. Enron holds a call option that gives it the right to repurchase the pipeline from Dynegy at $1.5 billion plus the assumption of debt. Gary Cardone, president and ceo of Dynegy Europe, told delegates at a London utility conference last week that Enron is "shopping it pretty hard." He declined to elaborate, beyond saying it made sense for Enron to try to maximize the value from the asset.

Arlington, Va.-based AES will likely be forced to offload much of its Latin America portfolio at bargain prices as there are a slew of assets already for sale in the region and international interest in the sector is very low, reason analysts and bankers. AES announced last week it is looking to sell $1-1.5 billion of underperforming assets in the U.S. and Latin America to shore up its balance sheet.

The Edison Electric Institute is pushing for the creation of standardized mark-to-market power-trading accounting practices to mitigate foul play and to improve investors' understanding of power traders' balance sheets. David Stringfellow, director of accounting at the Washington, D.C.-based utility lobbying group, told PFR that Enron's alleged abuse of accounting rules has shown the need for specific power-trading guidelines. The EEI is currently gathering industry support for the move and hopes to approach the Financial Standards Accounting Board and its affiliate the Emerging Issues Task Force (EITF) within the next few weeks.

The project finance market is turning ever more wary of merchant risk, as evidenced by the recent restructuring of two deals in syndication, and interest is growing among lenders looking to offload their exposure to non-contracted power price risk in the secondary market. One project financier notes that although there's never been an active secondary market in project loans, since the start of the year he's been contacted by a number of players looking to offload merchant exposure on deals that have already closed. "It's not pitching. It's really begging," he says of the sales approach.

MMC Enterprise Risk, a unit of the insurance and asset management behemothMarsh & McLennan, is looking to build a weather team targeting end-users with structured solutions and has hired ex-Enron origination manager Partho Ghosh as part of the effort. M&M has been looking at the market for a while, but hasn't been active so far, says one official. Another was unsure whether the insurer had executed any deals.

Newark, N.J.-based Public Service Enterprise Group last Tuesday launched a new $620 million senior revolving credit facility, with J.P. Morgan leading the transaction. A PSEG spokesman says the one-year deal is for general purposes and a C.P. back-up. The revolver is upsized by $50 million over the previous facility.

Dynegy Holdings was forced to pay a 185 basis point premium over it most recent debt offering when it tapped the bond market earlier this month. The unregulated arm of the Houston power giant tapped the bond market Feb. 15 with a $500 million deal priced at par to yield 8.75%. Its last fixed-income foray--a March 2001 $500 million offering of 10-year notes--yielded 6.9% at offer. The price change reflects the company being placed on credit watch for a possible downgrade since the last issue and wider credit spreads for the sector as a whole, explains Steve Stengel, a spokesman.

Reliant Resources' decision to scrap the sale of its Dutch generation and European energy-trading business and instead begin rebuilding its European power franchise, has left M&A bankers dumbfounded. "Once you've announced a sale you've got to go through with it," says one London-based power-banking chief. He adds, "When you've told investors and employees that the business doesn't fit in with your plans, how can you then retain it?"

Bonds Date Maturity Issuer Amount Price Type of Security Coupon (%) Moody's S&P Book Manager(s) 02/15/02 02/28/07 EnBW International Finance 655.4 99.484 Fxd/Straight Bd 5.125 A2 A+ BarcCap/Deutsche Bank 02/15/02 02/28/12 EnBW International Finance 873.9 99.704 Fxd/Straight Bd 5.875 A2 A+ BarcCap/Deutsche Bank 02/19/02 12/28/05 Nederlandse Waterschapsbank 200 99.789 Fxd/Straight Bd 4.25 Aaa AAA CSFB/RBC M&A Date Announced Date Effective Target Name Target Country Acquiror Acquiror Country Value ($mil) 02/15/02 02/15/02 Apokjeden Norway Tamro Oy Finland - 02/15/02 - NRG Energy U.S. Xcel Energy U.S. 585.684 02/16/02 - Gas Brasiliano Distribuidora Brazil Petrobras Brazil - 02/18/02 02/18/02 KRI (Piecobiogaz) Poland RWE Germany - Source: Thomson Financial Securities Data Company. For more information, call Rich Peterson at (973) 645-9701.