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Court battles widen for ProLiance Energy: Gas marketer sues its insurer for millions in legal fees

ProLiance Energy LLC, already facing a $38.9 million judgment under a federal racketeering law, now is battling its insurer in court to collect more than $2 million in legal fees for its defense. New Jersey-based Executive Risk Specialty Insurance Co. not only refuses to pay the claim but also wants ProLiance to return $1.3 million in defense expenses paid before the February verdict on behalf of Huntsville Utilities in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama. The jury…

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Were IPL earnings too big?: Secret biz plan: Execs feared state would order refunds

In May 2003, the top brass at IPALCO Enterprises Inc. was running the numbers and saw potential regulatory trouble down the line. The latest projections showed the Indianapolis Power & Light Co. parent would earn a return on equity more than double the industry average for years to come, according to a confidential business plan drafted that spring. Not only might state regulators question whether IPALCO was earning too much money from customers, they also might apply existing case law…

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Retooling telecom: As rivals proliferate, SBC taps executive to overhaul offerings

Few industries have been as overrun by competitors as the Baby Bells-SBC Communications and other phone companies created through the breakup of Ma Bell AT&T in 1984. The San Antonio-based owner of what used to be Indiana Bell now competes along with local telephone exchange carriers that have carved out an estimated 20 percent of residential service in the state. Lately, cable TV companies such as Comcast have offered phone and broadband over the same, old coax cable that carries…

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New Citizens chief faces tough crowd: High gas prices, cranky industrial customers await Lykins

For seven days each July, Carey Lykins hikes a leg over his Trek touring bike in hopes of conquering Iowa. The [Des Moines] Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa is a grueling 471 miles between the Missouri and the Mississippi Rivers. “It can be brutally hot, but it’s a real adventure,” said the 53-year-old Lykins. The same could be said for the tour Lykins began Oct. 1 as president and CEO of Citizens Gas & Coke Utility. The 32-year…

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Utility fund-raising effort takes heat for opt-out strategy: Critics say customers should be asked if they want to contribute to Operation Round Up-or any charity

The concept is a noble one: By rounding their bills up to the nearest dollar, utility customers can turn pennies into a philanthropic windfall for a worthy cause. Indeed, Operation Round Up programs at nearly 250 electric cooperatives nationwide-including 22 in Indiana-have collected more than $50 million for charity since the fund-raising effort began in 1989. But some observers question the method most participating utilities use to get their members involved. Rather than being asked to give, residential and commercial…

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How to make money in the bear-market minefield INVESTING Keenan Hauke: How to make money in the bear-market minefield

INVESTING How to make money in the bear-market minefield All year, you’ve been reading my description of what the end of a bull market looks like. Major indexes move higher but fewer and fewer stocks participate in the rally. A case in point: On Sept. 9, the S&P 500 came within two points of its early August high, but 60 percent fewer stocks hit new highs in September than in August. Hmm. Apple Computer is one of those stocks I…

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TAWN PARENT Commentary: Big hankering for the Big Easy

Once you’ve lived in New Orleans, you never really leave. A part of you stays on. You don’t feel quite whole again except when you return. Then it’s like regaining an appendage you had learned to live without, but suddenly realize how much you have missed. Transfixed by events there over the past month, I have been missing that part of me I left behind in 1996 when I drove a U-Haul north after three years as a reporter and…

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Proposed natural gas pipeline bogged down at IURC: Project would give customers access to lower-priced gas, blunting impact of Katrina and hike in delivery fee

A pipeline that would give residential and industrial customers access to cheaper wholesale natural gas from the West and Canada won’t be built this winter, when it could have blunted prices whipped skyward by Hurricane Katrina. The Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission is still reviewing Citizens Gas & Coke Utility’s request to construct a nearly 20-mile pipeline that would connect its Greene County gas storage facility with the Midwest Gas Transmission System line in Sullivan County. That line ties into a…

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Incubator under new ownership: Aim is to return center to its entrepreneurial mission

Any small-business incubator can offer tenants Internet service, fax machines and conference rooms. But what about the convenience of on-site oil changes or the stress relief of a pinball machine? For Scott Meyers, new owner of the revamped Indianapolis Enterprise Center, the extra incentives are just a small part of his overall plan to make the neareast-side facility more attractive to fledgling entrepreneurs. Meyers, 36, bought the former A&P grocery warehouse in May. He declined to disclose the purchase price…

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Pension fund opens coffers: $506M could be boon for venture capitalists

The Public Employees’ Retirement Fund, Indiana’s largest pension system, is preparing to unleash half a billion dollars into venture capital, real estate and other privateequity investments. And the fund’s managers aim to put the bulk of it to work inside state lines. Hoosier venture capitalists are salivating at the prospect. T h a t ‘s t h e equivalent of nearly seven BioCrossroads Indiana Future Funds. “If there are excellent opportunities to invest in Indiana, we ought to be looking…

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Law could generate earnings for Cummins: States face deadline in completing standards for connecting generators to grid

Cummins Inc. and other makers of electric generators stand to gain under a provision an Indiana lawmaker plugged into the federal energy bill signed this month. The amendment by 4th District Republican congressman Steve Buyer forces state utility commissions to adopt standards within two years that will pave the way for businesses that generate their own electricity to sell excess power to the electric grid. That’s good news for firms that generate their own power and for Cummins, which makes…

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Group wants energy czar: Coalition believes utilities slow to climb on efficiency bandwagon

Chris Maher’s crews at Thermo-Scan Inc. have been plenty busy inspecting for drafts and puny insulation in many of the 14,000 new homes built each year in the metro area. Even so, the principal at the Carmel firm can’t help wonder about the vast potential to make the hundreds of thousands of existing homes and businesses more energy efficient-if only homeowners had a little more incentive. Utility companies, he says, have relatively few dollars budgeted to coax customers to install…

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Ex-IPL officer fights utility: Claims wrongful termination, financial trickery

Not even a lineman at Indianapolis Power & Light Co. has more nerve than Dwane Ingalls. Floored that IPL’s CEO, Ann Murtlow, didn’t share his concerns that IPL was sending excessive cash to parent AES Corp. at the expense of electric-service reliability, the IPL vice president scheduled a meeting in mid-2003 at the Maryland home of AES CEO Paul Hanrahan. Hanrahan apparently didn’t see things Ingalls’ way. Within a year of the meeting, Murtlow terminated the 14-year AES employee. Now,…

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BULLS & BEARS: With real estate the rage, it’s time to swing to stocks

Stocks or real estate. Which one will “show you the money”? In my last column, I pointed out that-over two or three decades-an investment in stocks, with an average 10-percent return, should double in value every seven or so years. The big problem investors have is that the average 10 percent return is created by erratic and sporadic bursts and busts in stock prices. It’s nerve-racking. The bursts and busts really tax people’s emotions and drive some people away from…

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Watchdogs wishing for tough IURC: Consumer, biz groups hope Daniels picks commissioner who’ll say ‘no’ to utilities

Industrial and consumer interests say Gov. Mitch Daniels needs to fill a pending vacancy at the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission with a regulator “able to say no” to utility companies. The IURC has too often allowed utilities to pass on increased costs for fuel or purchased power, for example, through so-called tracking mechanisms rather than through traditional rate cases that take into consideration offsetting reductions in other costs, they complain. “It’s important to be able to say no to the…

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Med school takes hit: IU trims $5.2 million from budget, cuts 36 positions

The school tabled some construction plans and may have to curtail recruiting of “star” faculty in areas such as diabetes research, said Dr. Craig Brater, the school’s dean. On top of that, the school cut 36 positions and halted spending for several programs after it was hit by decreases in state funding and grants, and a rise in expenses. Brater said the medical school has been lucky “in large part” to receive the funding it needed over the years. He…

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HIGHER (cost of) EDUCATION: Students’ college burden continues to rise in Indiana

With state funding flat and operating expenses rising, Indiana’s public universities are turning to a familiar source to make up the difference-students. Tuition and mandatory fees at state institutions are set to climb an average of 5 percent next school year and higher in 2006-2007, if proposed rates stand. That’s a far cry from the double-digit increases most universities imposed just a few years ago, but observers say it’s worrisome nonetheless. “Tuition has been rising at twice the rate of…

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Broadband gets power boost in Indiana: Utilities begin offering Internet access through electrical lines in rural areas

Electric utilities serving the state’s rural areas are warming to the prospect of delivering high-speed Internet over household power lines, as several are in various stages of exploring the technology. Offering broadband over power lines to rural areas is becoming a new front in the competition between cable, telephone and, now, electric companies. Power providers in Boone and Monroe counties, and Cincinnati-based Cinergy Corp., are testing the equipment, although Cinergy is not offering the service to Indiana customers yet. More…

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As market correction plays out, good buys remain INVESTING Keenan Hauke:

It’s week five of the correction that began in early March. Major market indexes have declined anywhere from 3 percent to 8 percent, and the selling may not be over. Does it matter? Is this simply another minor setback on the march to new highs? It definitely matters. As I’ve said since January, the bull market that began in March 2003 has now changed so that you can’t depend on the broad rising tide to bail you out. Micro-cap-size companies…

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TOM HARTON Commentary: Riding the rails from first to worst

When my grandparents took the interurban from Rushville to Indianapolis to see the 1920 Indianapolis 500, they probably didn’t appreciate how lucky they were to live in a state that was a leader in public transportation. Indiana had one of the earliest and most extensive interurban systems in the country. The state’s electric railway network converged at the Indianapolis Traction Terminal, thought to be the largest interurban station in the world. The massive building on West Market Street served 462…

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