After waiting more than two years, American Electric Power andCentral and South West Corp. completed their merger yesterdayfollowing approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission(SEC). AEP chairman E. Linn Draper Jr. said the company’spost-merger strategy consists of three key elements: wholesale,energy delivery and retail.

“Each of these business lines has its own characteristic set ofskills and capital requirements, but the two that will be mostimportant for us initially are the wholesale and energy deliverybusinesses. We are already substantial players in the wholesalebusiness and expect to continue to grow. People who follow ourindustry know that our energy trading business has quickly grownfrom a startup two years ago into the second-leading trader ofelectricity and a top-20 trader of natural gas today. ..We haven’tmade a firm decision that retail is a business that we want to bein, but our instincts are that we probably will,” he said.

The merged company will retain the American Electric Power nameand will continue trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the”AEP” stock symbol. Each share of CSW stock will be converted to0.6 shares of AEP stock. No action is required by holders ofexisting AEP stock.

The merger creates an energy company with combined annualrevenues of $12.5 billion, combined 1999 electricity sales ofalmost 200 million MWh, total assets of more than $35 billion, anenergy trading operation that ranked second in U.S. electricityvolume and in the top 20 in natural gas in 1999, more than 4.8million customers in 11 states, more than 38,000 MW of low-costgenerating capacity in the U.S., more than 38,000 miles oftransmission lines and more than 186,000 miles of distributionlines. Efficiencies gained through the merger will result in atleast $2 billion in savings over 10 years.

©Copyright 2000 Intelligence Press Inc. All rights reserved. Thepreceding news report may not be republished or redistributed, inwhole or in part, in any form, without prior written consent ofIntelligence Press, Inc.