Court OK's Sale of Portland General (Enron's largest remaining asset)

Feb. 5, 2004, 10:32PM

Court OKs sale of Portland General
By ERIC BERGER
Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle

Enron gained approval from its bankruptcy court Thursday to sell its Portland General Electric utility to a group of Portland businessmen for $1.25 billion.

The business group, including former Oregon Gov. Neil Goldschmidt, will also assume $1.1 billion in debt.

The new company formed by the group, Oregon Electric, is backed by the Texas Pacific Group, an investment group led by David Bonderman, best known in Houston for financing Continental Airlines' comeback.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Arthur Gonzalez was charged with ensuring that the deal was in the best interests of Enron's creditors, who will share cash from the sale......cont'd

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/business/2390257

These people, who by the way include a prominent former Oregon governor (a Democrat) peddling influence, bought a local election that would have turned Portland General Electric into a public utility. They outspent the opposition campaign by more than 20-1. As soon as the election was over, within about a week, they announced they were working on this deal.

We had a chance to take them out of the picture. Now, it's just being recycled to another group of Texas oil republicans.

As someone who opposed PGE over their now-defunct nucular plant in my back yard since the 1970s, and someone who has followed their crap since high school, this is really a consumer ripoff on a grand scale. PGE has the highest electricity rates in the Northwest.

And where the hell is Ken Lay? :grr:

I knew someone who was working on the public utility concept. :-(

The curmudgeonly old law professor who used to live in my building hated Neil Goldschmidt, and I gradually began to see why. This only confirms it.

Progressive young mayor of Portland, Secretary of Transportation in the Carter administration, liberal governor of Oregon. Now just grasping for dollars. He's also involved in a big scandal about huge consulting fees paid to him by the director of the State Accident Insurance Fund.

But selling out to Texas energy crooks is at the very bottom of the food chain. Don't ya miss us? :-)

and put them into bankruptcy.

How about doing something in the best interest of we consumers, whose rates went up 30 percent in one year of Enron ownership? What about doing something about Enron's looting of the assets and the pension fund?

An outrage. Those Oregonians who have to choose between food and heat get no consideration.