More than 40 electric utilities are scheduled to make presentations Tuesday at Edison Electric Institute's financial conference in Orlando. Few will be as closely watched as TECO Energy Inc.
Edison is the nation's leading trade group for investor-owned utilities, and its annual financial conference is always well-attended by the Wall Street investment community.
Saddled with a wholesale power business that's hemorrhaging money and threatening the financial health of the entire company, TECO of Tampa hasn't held an open meeting or conference call with analysts since April and hasn't provided them with earnings projections since October 2002.
TECO executives will field questions Tuesday, but they still won't be providing any earnings guidance, according to spokeswoman Laura Plumb.
That will no doubt frustrate analysts who cover the company. Amid a dearth of information, analysts polled by Thomson Financial/First Call had projected TECO would post earnings of 38 cents a share in the third quarter, wildly overshooting the actual figure of 8 cents a share, down sharply from 76 cents a year earlier.
TECO's 45-minute presentation will be Webcast at 9 a.m. Tuesday at www.tecoenergy.com Progress Energy Inc., the Raleigh, N.C., parent of Progress Energy Florida of St. Petersburg, plans to provide an update on its debt-cutting plans during its Edison presentation Tuesday but won't Webcast it. Then again, it will come less than a week after its third-quarter earnings conference call.
