Public Service Enterprise Group Inc.'s (PEG) second-quarter
earnings jumped 44% from a year-ago period weighed down by one-time
charges.
Continued weakness in power prices and ongoing uncertainty over
environmental regulations has weighed on PSEG in recent quarters.
The New Jersey utility and generation company said in June that it
would sell its remaining Texas power-generating operations to a
unit of Energy Capital Partners II LP for $335 million.
PSEG posted a profit of $323 million, or 63 cents a share, up
from $224 million, or 44 cents a share, a year earlier. Excluding
one-time items such as mark-to-market accounting, per-share
operating earnings were 59 cents, down from 63 cents. Analysts
polled by Thomson Reuters expected 55 cents a share.
PSEG Power, the company's largest unit by earnings, saw
operating earnings drop 19% from a year earlier as results were
affected by a quarter-over-quarter decline in realized energy and
capacity prices.
Shares of the company, which affirmed its full-year outlook,
closed Tuesday at $32.25 and were inactive premarket. The stock is
up 1.4% since the start of the year.
-By Mia Lamar, Dow Jones Newswires; 212-416-3207; mia.lamar@dowjones.com