NextEra Discusses Review of Potential Texas Merchant Power Divestitures

During an earnings call yesterday, NextEra Energy executives discussed their thoughts on their strategic review of merchant power plants in Texas, and more broadly across its entire portfolio, including potential divestiture

The remarks were prompted by an analyst question regarding the status of NextEra's review of two gas-fired merchant plants in Texas -- Lamar and Forney --which executives said should be complete in a few months

"[W]e look at that portfolio, our entire merchant portfolio, every year and try to determine whether it still makes sense for us from a shareholder perspective to retain those merchant assets based on our view, which is not necessarily the market view, based on our view of what we think those markets are," NextEra executives said

"We're going through a process in Texas on Lamar and Forney. I warn folks all the time, we've gone through processes before on our merchant assets, and that doesn't necessarily mean at the end of the day that we divest those assets. We sometimes go through the process and we retain those assets. But we believe that there may be folks that are very interested in those assets. They've been great assets for us. We believe that there might be a shareholder base or other bases out there that believe those assets are worth more to them than they would be to our shareholders," NextEra executives said

"So we're going to take a look at that very seriously here over the next couple of months. And if we decide that it make sense, then we will likely make the decision to divest. But those should not be the -- I know there has been a focus on those assets -- those should not be the only assets that investors and analysts believe that we're looking at. I mean, we look at all of our assets every year, and determine whether it makes sense for us to continue to hold them. Those are just, honestly, the ones that are public at this point," NextEra executives said