FPL Group Pays $837M for Controlling Interest in Seabrook

FPL Group anticipates completing the acquisition by the end of the year and will finance the transaction through a combination of equity and debt. Seabrook is a 1,161-megawatt pressurized water reactor that began operating in 1990. It is located on a 900-acre site in this town and Hampton and Hampton Falls, about 40 miles north of Boston. It provides approximately seven percent of the electrical power in New England.

The purchase agreement was reached through an auction process, launched late last year and supervised by the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission in coordination with the Connecticut Department of Public Utility Control.

Members of the Seabrook consortium selling their interests include Northeast Utilities, the United Illuminating Company, BayCorp Holdings, National Grid Group plc, NSTAR and the New Hampshire Electric Cooperative. The remaining interests are being retained by Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric Company, Taunton Municipal Lighting Plant and Hudson Light & Power Department.

Lew Hay, chairman and CEO of FPL Group, notes that the purchase is part of the company's strategy to "become a major energy provider in the Northeast region" and this plant is "highly complementary to our current Northeast portfolio."

Seabrook Station will become a part of FPL Energy, the independent power producer subsidiary of FPL Group and will represent more than one-third of FPL Energy's power generation assets in the Northeast. Approvals for the transaction are needed from federal and state regulatory agencies, including public utility commissions in the owners' states as well as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the New Hampshire Nuclear Decommissioning Financing Committee, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and the Department of Justice or the Federal Trade Commission.