FPL Group Experiences Record Profits in Midst of Crumbling Florida Economy

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--FPL Group (NYSE:FPL) (Juno Beach, Florida) recently reported the company's earnings for fourth quarter and fiscal year 2008, which ended December 31, 2008. Despite a strong decline in revenues in the company's utility subsidiary Florida Power & Light Company (Juno Beach), FPL Group's net income for the year increased 25% from the previous year, moving from $1.31 billion in 2007 to $1.64 billion in 2008.

"We're pleased to report that 2008 was our best year ever, which is something we doubt very many companies can say," said Chairman and CEO Lew Hay. "Our success was driven by record adjusted earnings at NextEra Energy Resources, which we renamed from FPL Energy to better reflect the company's clean energy mission and market focus. At Florida Power & Light, we continued to exercise prudent management in the face of an unprecedented Florida economic downturn."

Florida Power & Light did, in fact, suffer significantly from the economic downturn and weather-related usage declines. The utility company's net income for the fiscal year fell from $836 million in 2007 to $789 million, with $22 million of this $47 million shortfall occurring in the fourth quarter alone. In the quarter, the number of account holders with Florida Power & Light was 8,000 less than in 4Q07, and for the year, the company's account holders increased by only 13,000, a historically low number for the company.

Conversely, NextEra Energy Resources (Juno Beach) (formerly FPL Energy), FPL Group's competitive energy subsidiary had an excellent quarter and fiscal year. For the year, NextEra had a net income of $915 million, 69.4% higher than 2007's figure of $540 million. In a press release regarding the earnings, FPL Group attributed NextEra's strong performance to new assets, specifically highlighting new wind projects and the Point Beach nuclear power plant near Two Rivers, Wisconsin, which the company acquired in 2007.

Industrial Info, as part of its North American Industrial Database, is currently monitoring more than $29.3 billion of active and planned projects of the FPL Group. The Point Beach nuclear facility is scheduled for $22 million of outages in 2009 and 2010. Unit 2 of the plant is scheduled for a refueling outage in October of this year. The outage for Unit 1 is tentatively scheduled for March of 2010. Both outages for the 524-megawatt units are scheduled to last 30 days.

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