Liam Denning, Columnist

NextEra Needs Oncor Or An Encore

A second stumble at a utility megadeal raises issues.

April 11, 2017 at 5:39 PM UTC

Liam Denning is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering energy. A former banker, he edited the Wall Street Journal’s Heard on the Street column and wrote the Financial Times’s Lex column.

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To miss one multi-billion dollar utility deal is unfortunate; to miss two is careless, as the old saying goes.

NextEra Energy Inc., a hybrid of Florida's main regulated utility and the country's biggest private portfolio of renewable energy projects, is facing its second failed utility deal in less than a year. The Public Utility Commission of Texas may this week formally block NextEra's $18.4 billion takeover of Oncor Electric Delivery Co., which operates the state's biggest electricity transmission network. Only last July, NextEra's $4.3 billion pursuit of Hawaiian Electric Industries Inc. was also stymied by state regulators.