NRG Lectures the Feds (NRG, EXC)

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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NRG Energy, Inc. (NYSE:NRG) responded to yesterday’s announcement by hostile suitor Exelon Corporation (NYSE:EXC) that Exelon had filed for Hart-Scott-Rodino approval of its proposed merger with NRG. The response is nothing more than a big whine.

NRG says there is no transaction to approve, and that the filing is an"unnecessary distraction for regulators" and that "processing thefiling would result in an inefficient use of government resources." NRGcould be right, but presumably the Department of Justice, the FederalTrade Commission, and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission knowwhat they’re supposed to do and when they’re supposed to do it. Thefederal agencies probably don’t need NRG to give them a lecture on howto do their jobs.

NRG’s share price hit an intra-day peak of $22.55 at about 1 p.m.yesterday. The company’s tepid response to Exelon was issued at about 3p.m. NRG shares closed at $21.12. This is probably not the response thecompany hoped for, but it’s certainly what they deserved.

Paul Ausick
December 19, 2008

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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