Land For Sale Vermont

GMP Parent Company Makes Offer To Buy CVPS

(Host)  Green Mountain Power and its parent company, Quebec- based Gaz Metro, have offered to buy Central Vermont Public Service for $702 million.

That includes a cash settlement and would cover $230 million of CVPS debt.   The proposal comes less than a month after another offer from the Canadian utility ‘Fortis'. 

VPR's Nina Keck has this report:

(Keck) Green Mountain Power CEO Mary Powell says they're offering CVPS shareholders and customers a better deal than Fortis. 

(Powell) "Well it's superior in I think every way you can look at it. It's a better price to shareholders. It's $144 million of savings over 10 years. It's a significant investment in renewable energy in this state."

(Keck) Powell says they're offering CVPS shareholders $35.25 cents a share.  That's 15 cents more per share than Fortis offered. Powell also says merging the two Vermont utilities would create effeciences that when paired with the natural attrition of their aging workforce could save customers $144 million over the next decade.

(Powell) "We both have more than 40% of our workforces that are going to be retiring in the next 5 years - so one of the things we really looked at very very carefully is how do we harness that for VT to create one stronger company.

(Keck) Together GMP and CVPS employ over 700 people. While Powell says no layoffs are planned as part of the sale, she says some changes will be necessary at the very top levels. As part of the sale, Green Mountain Power and Gaz Metro propose taking 30% of the ownership shares that CVPS and GMP would jointly own in Velco, the energy transmission company, and transfer that to a public trust.

(Powell) "Its our proposal that the dividend stream from the shares of Velco in this public trust - we think it would be a good idea to have that revenue stream benefit low income Vermonters."

(Keck) Powell says if the sale goes through they plan to build a new regional headquarters in downtown Rutland and invest heavily in renewable energy, making Rutland what she called the state's first solar city.   Sophie Brucho, president of Gaz Metro says that while the deal would benefit her shareholders, they are in it for the long term. 

(Brucho) "We're not a pack-man and we're not there to spin companies. We're been in Quebec for decades and we've been in Vermont with Vermont Gas for 26 years and we knew from the outset looking at the lay of the land with the electric distribution operations in Vermont that it would only make sense to bring some of those companies together.