Enron Corp. said a vote of its creditors on the plan for the corporation and its affiliates to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy was overwhelmingly favorable. The company filed the certification of the creditors’ vote with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court Thursday.

Of the plan classes in which votes were received, 104 classes overwhelmingly voted to accept the plan and only seven classes — all general unsecured creditors — voted to reject the plan. The seven classes that rejected it are: Enron Power Marketing, Inc., Enron Broadband Services, Enron North America Upstream, Clinton Energy, Risk Management & Trading Corp., Portland General Holdings.

“We are pleased that we have sufficient votes to confirm the plan,” said Stephen F. Cooper, Enron’s acting CEO and chief restructuring officer. “We will continue to work with these few dissenting classes to address their issues, answer their questions, and hopefully reach a positive resolution by our June 3 confirmation hearing.” At that time the court will decide on whether the process should continue. Enron has estimated it could take another one to two years to resolve all creditors’ claims.

In order for a creditor class to have accepted the plan, two-thirds of the dollar amount represented by the class and more than 50% of the number of creditors is required. Enron and its affiliates expect to file an amended certification of the vote on or before the beginning of the confirmation hearing.

The plan filed by Enron last year proposed to split the company into three segments. One segment, CrossCountry Energy Corp., would hold its North American natural gas pipelines, including Texas-to-California Transwestern Pipeline system, and Enron’s interests in Citrus Corp. and Northern Plains Natural Gas Co, along with some related service companies. A second entity, Prisma Energy International Inc., would hold the company’s international interests. Enron’s major utility holding, Portland General Electric (PGE), was listed as a separate entity (see Daily GPI, July 14, 2003). Since that time the separate sales of the pipeline unit and PGE have been proposed.

In January, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Arthur Gonzalez approved the sale of PGE to a holding company backed by investment funds managed by Texas Pacific Group. The holding company, Oregon Electric Utility Co. LLC, will pay $1.25 billion in cash and assume $1.1 billion in debt for the utility. The PGE sale is currently before the Oregon Public Utility Commission and also must be approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC already has approved Enron’s reorganization plan.

Enron also recently announced that it will sell its North American pipeline business for $2.2 billion including debt to NuCoastal LLC, whose owners include Oscar Wyatt Jr., former chairman and CEO of Coastal Corp. and an El Paso Corp. board member. (see Daily GPI, May 24).

©Copyright 2004 Intelligence Press Inc. All rights reserved. The preceding news report may not be republished or redistributed, in whole or in part, in any form, without prior written consent of Intelligence Press, Inc.