Report says Nevada Power may have considered other mergers this year

Wednesday, Sept. 23, 1998 | 4:26 a.m.

Nevada Power Co. of Las Vegas and Reno-based Sierra Pacific made reference to merger discussions as part of a list of documents they want kept secret during state regulatory review.

Public Utilities Commission Chairwoman Judy Sheldrew hasn't acted on the utilities' request for confidential treatment of documents in two boxes of filings related to the proposed Nevada Power-Sierra Pacific marriage.

But the PUC has disclosed the list of the documents the utilities have asked be kept secret.

The list refers to documents that evaluated potential Nevada Power mergers with San Diego Gas & Electric's parent company; Topeka, Kan.-based Western Resources; and Public Service Co. of New Mexico, based in Albuquerque.

Tom Henley, a spokesman for Nevada Power, declined to comment on merger discussions, saying it would violate Securities and Exchange Commission rules. The utilities want the documents kept secret to avoid divulging sensitive information to competitors. It's not clear whether one or both utilities evaluated mergers with the three out-of-state utilities.

The documents are listed as contents of a box of material related to PaineWebber. PaineWebber is a New York-based investment banking firm that advised Nevada Power concerning the Sierra Pacific merger.

The secret documents include "a strategic discussion supplement" that is dated December 1997 and refers to evaluation of a possible merger with the New Mexico electric utility.

It also has similar references to merger evaluation documents dated Jan. l7 for the parent company of San Diego Gas, Western and Sierra Pacific.

San Diego Gas was part of Enova Corp. before Enova merged with Pacific Enterprises of Los Angeles in June. The merged companies are headquartered in San Diego and is called Sempra Energy.

Western Resources has 615,000 electric customers in Kansas and owns a natural gas distribution company in Oklahoma with 1 million customers.