SO Southern Co

By Austen Hufford 

Southern Co., one of the biggest utilities in the U.S., said profit slipped in the latest quarter, thanks to warm weather and another hit from the company's clean coal project in Mississippi.

An unseasonably mild December offset what the company said was solid performance in its traditional operating companies and success with renewable energy projects at a subsidiary. Kilowatt-hour sales to residential customers fell 13.5% from a year earlier, while commercial and industrial sales also fell.

Along with lower sales, two charges bit into the Atlanta company's bottom line. Southern said earnings in the quarter were again hit by estimated probable losses stemming from its Kemper County project, a clean-coal power plant under construction in Mississippi.

Southern's results of late have been hurt by the project, where completion dates have been repeatedly pushed back. Kemper reduced earnings by 12 cents a share in the December quarter, after shaving 7 cents off earnings in the year-ago quarter.

Southern in August struck a deal to buy natural-gas utility AGL Resources Inc. for about $8 billion in a move to access fast-growing gas markets from New Jersey to Florida. Charges stemming from that purchase reduced fourth-quarter earnings by $19 million, Southern said.

Over all, Southern reported a profit of $271 million, or 30 cents a share, down from $283 million, or 31 cents, a year earlier. Excluding the aforementioned charges, among other items, per-share earnings rose to 44 cents from 38 cents. Operating revenue fell 10% to $3.61 billion.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters projected adjusted per-share earnings of 43 cents on $4.47 billion in revenue.

Write to Austen Hufford at austen.hufford@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 03, 2016 08:11 ET (13:11 GMT)

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