Ameren Corp. history, profile and corporate video
Ameren Corp. provides electric and natural gas services. The company operates its business through three segments: Ameren Missouri, Ameren Illinois, and Merchant Generation. The Ameren Missouri segment operates a rate-regulated electric generation, transmission and distribution business, and a rate-regulated natural gas transmission and distribution business in Missouri. The Ameren Illinois segment operates a rate-regulated electric and natural gas transmission and distribution business in Illinois. The Merchant Generation segment for Ameren consists primarily of the operations or activities of AER, including Genco, EEI, AERG, and Marketing company. Ameren was founded in 1997 and is headquartered in St. Louis, MO.“
“Ameren history
In 1995 shareholders of both CIPSCO Inc. and of its neighboring utility of twice its size, the S&P 500-listed Union Electric Company, approved the merger of the two companies, which were to then be combined as Ameren Corporation. Both of those former utilities had traded publicly on the New York Stock Exchange, under ticker symbol CIP and UEP, respectively. At the time of the merger, Union Electric had assets of nearly US$600 million, but still carried nearly US$1.8 billion in long-term debt, although down from US$2.5 billion which it had accumulated by the 1980s. CIPSCO had assets of about US$210 million, but still carried nearly half of US$1 billion in long-term debt, which it had also accumulated by the 1980s.
The merger was completed on December 31, 1997, when the two public companies became one, as Ameren Corporation, which then began to trade publicly on the New York Stock Exchange with the ticker symbol AEE.
The former CIPSCO Inc. utility, Central Illinois Public Services Company, is now a subsidiary of the Ameren Corporation holding company, known as AmerenCIPS.
Following the merger, Union Electric began doing business as AmerenUE, now known as Ameren Missouri. Today, with nine power plants Ameren Missouri serves 1.2 million power customers and 110,000 gas customers, primarily in Missouri, where more than half of its customers reside in the St. Louis metropolitan area. It also serves adjoining parts of Illinois, and formerly served Iowa as well through the mid-1990s.
In 2000, Ameren formed the holding company, AmerenEnergy Resources. It contained two further subsidiaries, AmerenEnergy Marketing, and AmerenEnergy Generating.
In 2002, Ameren Corporation announced a voluntary retirement program, which was offered to approximately 1,000 of Ameren’s 7,400 current employees, expecting to realize significant long-term savings.
In 2003, Ameren acquired the Central Illinois Light Company. That utility’s holding company, CILCORP, Inc., had traded on the NYSE with ticker symbol CER, and by the mid-1990s had become a member of the S&P Small Cap 600 index. CILCORP had been another pioneer utility in the region, which had paid a dividend since 1921. By 1996, it had grown to over US$150 million in assets, and carried US$330 million in long-term debt. Following the 2003 Ameren acquisition, that utility then became the subsidiary,AmerenCILCO.
At the end of 2003, Ameren’s chairman and chief executive, Charles Mueller, retired and was succeeded in both positions by Gary Rainwater, the company’s president and chief operating officer the past two years.
In 2004, Ameren acquired (from Dynegy Inc.) its third partner from the 1952 Midwest Power Pool system, Illinois Power Company. That utility had traded publicly on the NYSE under the ticker symbol IPC through the 1980s, and paid dividends since 1947. As of the late 1980s, the company generated electricity and natural gas, almost entirely from coal plants, with less than 1% fueled from oil and gas. By then, with about $360 million in assets, it carried long-term debt of over US$2 billion. In 1991, Illinois Power became the subsidiary of holding company Illinova Corp., which traded on the NYSE with ticker symbol ILN. Illinova had grown to an S&P Midcap 400 stock by 1996, with over US$415 million in assets, and had brought the IP utility’s debt down to US$1.8 billion by then. In a merger completed February 1, 2000, Illinova Corp. became a wholly owned subsidiary of Dynegy Inc. (NYSE: DYN), in which Chevron Corporation also took a 28% stake. Dynegy in turn had been created in June 1998, from the merger of Chevron’s natural gas and natural gas liquids businesses with Dynegy’s predecessor, NGC Corp. (former ticker NGL). NGC had been an integrated natural gas services company around since 1994. Following the 2004 Ameren acquisition of the IP utility, that subsidiary became AmerenIP. In 2010, all Illinois utilities merged to become Ameren Illinois Company.
In December 2004, Ameren announced that Patrick T. Stokes, the president and chief executive officer of Anheuser-Busch Cos., Inc., was elected to the Ameren board of directors.
In 2009, AmerenUE signed an agreement to purchase 102 megawatts (MW) of wind power from phase II of Horizon Wind Energy’s Pioneer Prairie Wind Farm in Iowa. That’s enough to power 26,000 households. The power AmerenUE is purchasing will tie into the Midwest Independent System Operator (MISO) transmission grid, of which the company is a member, fulfilling AmerenUE’s commitment to add 100 megawatts of renewable capacity to serve its Missouri customers by 2010.”
*Information from Forbes.com and Wikipedia.org
**Video published on YouTube by “AmerenCorp“