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* InterGen's $600 million financing for the construction of La Rosita I and II (1,060 MW) won widespread support from many financiers. They rave about the Citibank, BNP Paribas and the Export Development Corp.-led deal for a variety of reasons. It's the largest ever non-recourse Mexican power loan and the first Mexican IPP to sell power into California. Financiers also highlight the portfolio's well-diversified off-take and marketing agreements as a source of security. The bulk of the output is contracted on a take-or-pay basis (50% to the Comision Federal de Electricidad and 20% to Coral, a Shell subsidiary) and the balance is sold into Southern California on a merchant basis.

Consumers Energy tapped the market last week for $300 million with 6% three-year bonds to refinance an issue of the same size it called in December. The strategy allowed the utility subsidiary of Dearborn, Mich.-based CMS Energy to take-out 6 3/8% coupon debt, says spokesman Kelly Farr.

Barclays Capital plans to become a heavy hitter in the U.K power market with its trading volume matching that of the dedicated power trading shops and utilities. "I would hope that we would be deep in the market shortly. I expect to see us up the rankings alongside the utilities," says Richard Lewis, newly appointed head of U.K. power and gas.

Entergy-Koch Trading has added former Enron weather director Marc Graubart to its Houston weather origination team. Graubert's addition takes the marketing team to three, and his focus is on Latin and North American origination. One rival characterizes EKT as a strong weather trading shop, as opposed to being totally end-user focused. Graubert says building end-user business is a priority for the firm.

Dominion believes it has become the first power company to execute a combined stock and convertible deal through an overnight sale. Scott Hetzer, senior v.p. and treasurer, says while it's common to issue either stock or convertibles in these types of overnight transactions, combining the two hasn't been done in the sector before. This reflects the fact two distinct types of buyers are being targeted and Wall Street firms handling the sale typically don't operate combined equity and convertible desks, he says. An overnight transaction is a deal executed without marketing after the public markets close, normally via a block trade.

RWE increased its offer to buy U.K. power company Innogy, raising expectations the two may announce a deal this week. The German utility and Innogy, which have been in talks for several weeks, are homing in on a price slightly over GBP2.70 ($3.85) a share (Wall Street Journal, 3/18).

Steven Fetter, managing director and head of Fitch's combined global power group in New York and Chicago, is leaving the agency this week to launch an energy consulting firm. Officials in the group say he has not yet been replaced and that Alan Spen, executive managing director in the New York office, is currently the acting head of the group. Spen did not return calls.

The United Nations' nuclear watchdog says it was unclear how vulnerable nuclear facilities were to terrorist attacks of the scale that shocked the world on Sept. 11. A report by the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency said nuclear facilities were generally very robust structures, but that their resistance to such attacks could not be easily determined (Reuters, 3/18).

A risk management official at Enron began warning top executives nearly three years ago of the improprieties of some of its off-balance sheet partnerships that played a major role in its collapse last year. Later, in September last year, Vince Kaminski, who headed a research group at Enron that did analysis for Enron's risk control and trading operations, had begun to argue that the partnerships had gone from being merely "stupid" to being fraudulent (The Wall Street Journal, 3/18).

Pharmaceuticals company Wyeth dropped Andersen as its auditor, joining a group of about 50 companies that have abandoned the accounting firm as it grapples with Enron-related obstruction of justice charges. Andersen pulled in $5.6 million in auditing fees from Wyeth in 2000, according to a company Securities and Exchange Commission filing (Reuters, 3/18).