Japan May Get ‘Good Tepco, Bad Tepco’ in Government Takeover

Tokyo Electric Power Co. may be approaching the end of its life as a private company as the cost of the Fukushima nuclear disaster drains cash and the government considers nationalizing the utility.

“We’re probably seeing the beginnings of the end of Tepco as the entity that we know,” said Penn Bowers, a utilities’ analyst with CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets in Tokyo. The government may “wrap up the bad assets from Fukushima into a ‘Bad Tepco,’” and leave other assets as a ‘Good Tepco’ that could be listed, Bowers said.