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Crisis-stricken Midwest energy giant CMS Energy is reportedly considering foregoing its independence in the wake of its tumbling stock price, credit rating downgrade to junk status and admission of engaging in large-scale bogus power trades. Two Wall Street bankers that have spoken to senior CMS officials say the company has actively begun shopping itself. However, Kelly Farr, a CMS spokesman, denied the move.

NRG Energy has been pleased with the bids it has received for the sale of selective international assets and plans to wrap up many of the transactions by next month, says a Wall St. official familiar with the negotiations. "The offers NRG has received so far have been very good so the process has been going even quicker than expected. NRG's plan has been to try and get the sales completed as quickly as possible to improve liquidity and reduce debt," she says. Calls to Lisa Bader, an NRG spokeswoman at the Minneapolis-based energy concern, were not returned.

TXU Europe is planning to tap the European bond market at the end of this month with sterling and euro-denominated offerings and plans to launch a road show to pitch the deal this Thursday. The sterling deal is being led by Barclays Capital and Deutsche Bank, and the euro offering is being arranged by Banc of America Securities, BNP Paribas and Deutsche Bank.

Lead underwriters Barclays Capital and Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein began marketing a debut sterling offering for Vattenfall last week. A banker involved in the deal says the roughly GBP300 million ($441 milion) 15-year bond offering could price as early as late this week depending on investor feedback and market conditions. He notes the Swedish utility is tapping the sterling market to broaden its investor base and to achieve a longer tenor than available in the euro market. He adds the utility has little use for sterling and is likely to swap the proceeds back into euros to finance the expansion of its German utility arm.

Barclays Capital and Citibank launched syndication last week of the GBP429 million ($633 million) Spalding project loan at a bank meeting in London. Officials says some 30 lenders attended the meeting and note the financing is split between a GBP362 million 19.5-year project loan, a GBP60 million letter of credit and a GBP7 million working capital facility.

Richmond, Va.-based Dominion Energy is involved in active discussions with Mirant, NRG Energy and Edison Mission Energy to purchase generation assets in the MAIN to Maine region of the U.S., an area including the Northeast quadrant, Missouri, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan and Indiana, according to an official close to the matter. He explains Dominion's strategy is to take advantage of distressed asset sales, adding that it plans to strike a deal only if it deems prices are sufficiently low.

A federal jury deliberated Andersen's fate in a criminal obstruction of justice trial for a second day on Friday, making a second request for testimony by David Duncan, the accounting firm's fired top audit partner for Enron. The 12-member jury asked U.S. District Judge Melinda Harmon for the portion of Duncan's testimony about his guilty plea to obstruction of justice for ordering the destruction of Enron audit records (Reuters, 6/7).

Another major rating firm has lowered the credit rating of Tulsa-based Williams Cos., making it harder for the company to support its embattled trading business. Amid a wide-ranging federal probe into energy-trading companies, Moody's Investors Service on Friday cut Williams' credit rating one notch to the lowest investment grade, "Baa3" (Tulsa World, 6/8).

Electrabel is holding talks with the Rhone regional government in south-central France to acquire its 11.1% stake in French hydroelectricity producer Compagnie Nationale du Rhone. Last year, Electrabel and CNR set up a joint venture, Energie du Rhone, to sell electricity to France's energy-intensive industries, which are eligible to switch supplier from Electricite de France amid deregulation of the country's power market (Dow Jones, 6/10).

Potomac Electric Power says its acquisition of Conectiv is expected to close next quarter and that it is still subject to approval by New Jersey regulators and the Securities and Exchange Commission (Reuters, 6/7).