Investor Jitters Ease So Enron, Pgc Able To Rebound

Shares of Enron Corp. and Portland General Corp. rebounded as investors overcame fears that regulators will delay Enron’s $3.23 billion purchase of the Oregon utility.

Enron rose $1.50 to $42.87-1/2 Friday on heavy trading. Portland General shares rose $1.37-1/2 to $40.62-1/2.

Enron shares fell $2.75 and Portland General shares dropped $2.62-1/2 Thursday after the Oregon Public Utility Commission delayed a final decision on the transaction for about a month.

Enron Chief Executive Kenneth Lay and Portland General Chief Executive Ken Harrison reassured industry analysts in a Friday morning conference call that the delay was normal.

Enron still expects to have approval for the acquisition by midsummer, Lay said.

In a news release late Thursday, Lay said Enron was “terribly disappointed by the overreaction of the market to this news.” Oregon regulators assured the company no new issues have arisen in the case, he said.

“I think the knee-jerk reaction on the Street was, ‘Oh my God, the deal’s in trouble, the commission’s not going to approve this thing,’ ” said Lawrence Crowley, a Jefferies & Co. analyst. “That’s not the case at all.”

The new time frame was agreed upon following several weeks of discussion, he said. No new developments have popped up that would imperil the transaction, Crowley said.

Houston-based Enron announced in July it had agreed to buy Portland General, which provides electricity to 1.3 million customers in Oregon, for a combination of stock and assumed debt.

The acquisition would position Enron to sell power from federal dams on rivers in Washington and Oregon into California, which will open competition in its retail power industry Jan. 1, 1998. It also gives the company more opportunities to profit from trading electricity futures contracts and derivatives.

Enron is a leading North American natural gas pipeline company. The company’s subsidiaries also produce and market electricity, find and produce oil and natural gas and build and operate power and pipeline projects worldwide.

Some of the stocks that moved substantially or traded heavily Friday.

NYSE

IBM rose 75 cents to $152.37-1/2.

IBM’s stock rose despite a drop in other computer-related shares, after the company made a series of high-level executive and organizational changes aimed at operating the company more globally and cutting the cost of delivering products to customers.

Philip Morris fell $2.25 to $111.50.

The fight against the tobacco industry intensified Friday when a Florida judge issued an unprecedented decision allowing Florida to claim racketeering in its $2.4 billion lawsuit over the public cost of smoking-related illnesses.

Quaker Oats Co. rose $2.12-1/2 to $38.12-1/2.

The food giant is seeking to sell its Gatorade sports drink along with Snapple juices and teas, with several companies weighing bids between $3 billion and $4 billion, The Wall Street Journal reports.

NASDAQ

Oracle Corp. fell $3.25 to $44.

The company said Thursday its second-quarter profits rose 30 percent to $179 million, or 27 cents a share, from $137 million, or 20 cents a share, in the same period of last year. But the results were below analysts’ consensus expectation of 28 cents a share.

Cisco Systems Inc. fell $1 to $64.75 and Interlink Computer Sciences Inc. rose $3.93-3/4 to $15.62-1/2.

Cisco acquired about 9 percent in Interlink and the two companies agreed to jointly develop and market Cisco’s Internetworking Operating System, or IOS. Both companies make computer networking systems for businesses.