With senior management and the board promising more robust returns from other energy investments, ScottishPower shareholders voted last Friday on the proposed $9.4 billion sale of its PacifiCorp utility operations in the United States. Results of the vote will be announced Tuesday, following annual and special shareholder meetings held in Glasgow.

ScottishPower’s board chairman and CEO both promised “very attractive returns” from taking the estimated $4.5 billion in net proceeds from selling PacifiCorp to MidAmerican Energy and investing in other energy ventures, both in the United States and the United Kingdom.

The deal can be wrapped up in the next 12 to 18 months, including state and federal regulatory approvals in the United States, according to board Chair Charles Miller Smith.

“We believe the decision to sell PacifiCorp — although a tough one to make — is the right one for our shareholders, enabling us to focus our management and capital on achieving growth and value from our continuing businesses [electric/natural gas distribution and transmission/generation in the UK and merchant power and gas storage in the United States],” Miller Smith said. The remaining businesses have shown a profit growth of 38% over the last two years, he told shareholders at the annual meeting, which was webcast over the Internet.

As part of the shareholders’ meeting, representatives of Native American tribes that live and work along rivers where PacifiCorp operates hydroelectric plants were allowed to speak, and some shareholders expressed concerns about the tribes’ treatment by the utility and about the prospects for the sale. There was no indication, however, that a rejection of the sale was in the offing.

ScottishPower’s CEO Ian Russell reiterated to shareholders that the company is maintaining its U.S.-based PPM Energy operations for wind power and natural gas storage merchant energy businesses in the United States. Russell said PPM has become the leading wind developer in the United States, and the company plans to add about 600 MW this year. For gas storage, PPM has about an 11% market share, Russell said.

PPM and the two UK-based divisions in ScottishPower have “terrific opportunities for organic growth,” Russell said.

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