CAHOKIA, Ill. (AFX) - Ameren Corp.'s plan to boost Illinois electric rates
by up to 55 percent could benefit its top executives, potentially increasing
their stock compensation by more than $200 million if the added revenue pumps up
the utility's stock price, Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn said Thursday.
"I think we're seeing an exercise in corporate greed; there's no question
about that," Quinn told reporters in this St. Louis suburb, the latest stop in
his crusade for a three-year extension of a rate freeze scheduled to end Jan. 1.
St. Louis-based Ameren provides power to about 1.2 million customers in
central and southern Illinois.
Quinn has made similar complaints about Commonwealth Edison, the
Chicago-based division of Exelon Corp., which plans to boost rates by about 22
percent when the freeze imposed by state lawmakers in 1997 dies.
ComEd has said it would lose about $1.4 billion and face possible bankruptcy
without a rate increase. Ameren has warned it would be forced to cut one-quarter
of the company's work force, hundreds of contractors and projects that improve
service reliability -- a scenario Quinn called "doomsday rhetoric."
Citing Ameren's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Quinn
said Ameren has prepared for the rate hike -- and the expected surge in its
stock price -- by issuing four million new shares of its stock as financial
incentives for its upper-echelon executives and directors.
In today's market, Quinn said, those shares would be worth more than $213
million, allowing Ameren's brass to "feather their own nest" at the expense of
Illinois consumers. Quinn said his research also showed that Ameren paid more
than $1.3 million last year to a handful of children, siblings, wives and
brothers-in-law of the company's top officers.
He said Ameren's SEC filings show that the company's top five executives
last year earned $7.38 million in salary, other compensation and stock options
exercised. "Why isn't that enough?" he asked.
Messages left for Ameren by The Associated Press on Thursday were not
immediately returned.
While acknowledging there was nothing criminal about Ameren's executive
compensation program, Quinn asked for the regulatory Illinois Commerce
Commission to look into it.
Quinn already has asked the commission for public hearings on salaries paid
to Exelon and ComEd executives and the companies' relationship with a group
advocating a competitive electrical market.
Quinn maintains that the ICC's interest in keeping electric rates reasonable
gives it the right to look into Exelon's executive pay and other compensation,
which he said SEC documents show totaled nearly $47 million for its top five
posts last year.
ComEd has said its shareholders, not rate-payers, pay to compensate Exelon's
top senior executives, with the company's board setting the executives' salaries
to ensure compensation is in line with industry peers.
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