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Mirant is on track to find a partner that will provide additional capital to back its trading operation. CEO Marce Fuller told a Morgan Stanley-sponsored investor conference that the IPP hopes to have an agreement in place by June 30. The company is talking to potential partners that could provide credit support by backing its trades (Reuters, 3/5).

U.S. District Judge Melinda Harmon has set a trial date of Dec. 1, 2003, for 70 or so Enron-related lawsuits. The date is much sooner than asked by defendants or plaintiffs and could lead to expedited settlements of some of the cases. The plaintiffs had asked for a trial date in 2004. The defendants, including current and former company officers and directors, had asked for a trial date in 2005 or later (Houston Chronicle, 3/1).

Sole underwriter Royal Bank of Scotland is looking for up to eight banks to participate in a GBP257 million ($365 million) non-recourse construction loan it is arranging for Conoco Global Power (CGP), but market watchers say the firm will have its work cut out fully syndicating the loan given the risks inherent in the deal.

Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein will close $340 million in non-recourse financing within the next few weeks for the construction of Araucaria, a 469 MW gas-fired power project in Brazil's Parana state that El Paso is developing. PFR was unable to ascertain the structure or pricing of the loan or syndication details before press time. Calls to El Paso and Dresdner were not returned.

Electricité de France has selected Société Générale to arrange a $217 million,16-year project loan to fund the construction of Rio Bravo III, a $290 million, 500 MW gas-fired plant in northern Mexico. A New York project financier close to the transaction says SocGen plans to launch syndication of the loan by the end of the second quarter. He adds EdF will provide the remaining $73 million of the project's costs with internal cash.

Enron is targeting four companies, American Electric Power, TXU, Entergy and Powergen's Louisville Gas & Electric, as potential buyers of Northern Natural Gas, the 16,500-mile interstate pipeline network it sold to Dynegy last November, but is now trying to buy back and sell on at a higher price. A New York official close to the negotiations says Enron has begun preliminary discussions with these four companies and plans to move forward expeditiously because a call option it owns on NNG expires June 30 (PFR, 2/25). To repurchase NNG Enron must pay Dynegy $1.5 billion in cash and assume the pipeline's $950 million of debt.

Bonds Date Maturity Issuer Amount Price Type of Security Coupon (%) Moody's S&P Book Managers(s) 02/21/02 02/22/04 EDEGEL SAA(Generandes) 8.3 100 Bonds 6 - - Citibank 02/22/02 11/01/11 InvestCo 99.5 Market Debentures 12.8 Aaa - Unibanco 02/22/02 02/27/07 Potomac Capital Investment 34.3 100 Mdm Trm Bk Nts 7.62 A3 BBB+ Merrill 02/22/02 02/27/12 Washington Gas and Electric 25 100 MTNs 6 NR NR Merrill 02/25/02 03/01/32 UtiliCorp 250 100 Senior Notes 7.875 Baa3 BBB Morgan Stanley 02/26/02 - Ameren 300 25 Adj Cvt Eq Uts - na A Goldman 02/26/02 03/01/12 Arizona Public Service 375 99.298 Notes 6.5 Baa1 BBB SSB/BofA M&A Date Announced Date Effective Target Name Target Country Acquiror Acquiror Country Value ($mil) 02/21/02 02/21/02 Nowra Gas Australia ACTEW Australia - 02/22/02 - Chapais Energie Societe Canada Clean Power Income Fund Canada - 02/22/02 02/22/02 Hafslund Norway Sydkraft Sweden - 02/26/02 - Enserco Energy Service Canada Nabors Industries U.S. 297.216 02/26/02 - Giants Reef Mining Treatment Australia Troy Resources NL Australia .385 02/26/02 - Mirant State Line Ventures U.S. Dominion Resources U.S. 182 02/26/02 02/26/02 Samaraenergo Russian Fed Siberian Aluminum Russian Fed - Source: Thomson Financial Securities Data Company. For more information, call Rich Peterson at (973) 645-9701.

Ameren last week completed the sale of $500 million of equity and convertible securities and will use the proceeds to pay down debt and reduce gearing. The St. Louis-based energy outfit raised $200 million through the sale of five million common shares and $300 million through the sale of 12 million $25 seven-year convertible equity-linked securities.

Charlotte, N.C.-based Cogentrix Energy, a privately-held independent power producer, has received three or four bids from potential merger partners and shortlisted one of them this past month for exclusive negotiations. A New York banker familiar with the matter says the bidder was successful because it expressed interest in purchasing the whole company, whereas others were only looking to buy parts of Cogentrix. The banker explains that the price of the winning bid, however, was lower than had been hoped for and may not, therefore, lead to a sale. Jef Freeman, a spokesman at Cogentrix, declined to comment and bankers at Goldman Sachs, which was hired late last year to find a suitor (PFR, 1/6), could not immediately be reached for comment.

Austin Energy, the municipal utility owned by the Lone Star state capital, is looking to use the $81.1 million it plans to raise in revenue bonds to refund $78 million of outstanding bonds issued on a combined basis for the City's utilities. Elaine Kuhlman, senior v.p. finance and corporate services, says the process of splitting out power funding from water and wastewater, began in June 2000 with a water issue. The rationale behind the move is that it allows the entities to be rated separately. The move also gave the utility the opportunity to draft less restrictive covenant provisions than those under the combined utilities agreement, she adds.