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Wall Street analysts' embarrassingly long infatuation with Enron, even as its stock was hurtling to Earth last fall, continues to leave emotional scars on the sell side community exactly a year after the energy trader filed for bankruptcy.

An International Power-led consortium has emerged as the frontrunner to land the acquisition and expansion rights to the Um Al Nar power plant in Abu Dhabi, after one of the three shortlisted bidders, Tractebel, failed to table a bid at the auction last week.

DTE Energy is reportedly involved in exclusive talks with FirstEnergy about acquiring its 2.5 GW Ohio portfolio of coal-fired generation assets. A banker familiar with the matter says FirstEnergy had been negotiating with several suitors, but recently whittled down the shortlist to just one bidder. He expects a sale to be completed by year-end. Amy Allor, a spokeswoman at DTE, did not return calls by press time and Ellen Raines, a FirstEnergy spokeswoman, declined comment.

NRG Energy is looking to liquidate its North American asset portfolio, including

Aluminium Bahrain (Alba) is set to hirer a consortium of nine banks, led by Gulf International Bank,HSBC and Mizuho Financial to arrange a $500-700 million loan in part to fund the construction of a new power plant. The aluminum smelter will announce the lead bank roster once it has also selected banks to underwrite a local currency bond offering and an Islamic loan, says a banker involved in the negotiations.

The B loan market for power sector paper has bloomed more than fourfold this year as embattled utilities and independent power producers have been forced to go cap in hand to institutional fund managers. Power companies have drawn some $4 billion of B loans so far this year, against $885 million for the whole of 2001, according to analysis by Standard & Poor's LCD Group, a leveraged loan data provider.

Goldman Sachs is on the verge of becoming a power plant owner in the beat up U.K. generation market. A City official says the Wall Street firm is holding exclusive negotiations with New Orleans-based Entergy about acquiring its 800 MW Damhead Creek plant in Kent, southern England. Rebecca Nelson, a spokeswoman at Goldman, confirmed that the bulge bracket outfit has looked at investment opportunities in the U.K. electric industry, but declined further comment. Gareth Brett, head of Entergy's European operations, did not return calls.

CIBC World Markets has released John Drake, a director in its New York utility leveraged-buyout group. Paul Kovich, managing director and head of the group, says Drake's departure was part of a company-wide bloodletting that saw 250 staff let go in order to cut costs at the investment bank. "It was very unfortunate and didn't reflect either his talent or our growth expectations in the utility LBO market," he notes.

Entergy Mississippi is looking to tap the bond mart by year-end or the beginning of next year to make further inroads into its interest-rate bill. Carey McCoy, jurisdictional finance director at the Entergy subsidiary, says the utility plans to make a $100 million offering to help refinance at cheaper levels some $275 million of debt that is either coming due or will be callable next year. "The debt markets right now are really attractive, so we want to lock in rates while they are low instead of risking the chance that they might not be as good next year," he says. The bonds it will be refinancing have coupons ranging from 6.25-8.25%. McCoy was unable to provide details on the pending deal, which will be its third bond deal since October, as deliberations are still at a preliminary stage.

Charlotte, N.C.-based Cogentrix Energy has started preparatory work with its bankers on renewing a $250 million corporate revolver, even though the deal doesn't mature until next October. "Companies don't want to leave it to the last minute. If they can get it done early, they're trying to do it," says one financier, who attended a bank meeting at Cogentrix's headquarters earlier this month. Calls to Jef Freeman, spokesman at Cogentrix, were not returned.