Business in brief: Itron completes Actaris buyout
Itron Inc. of Liberty Lake has finished acquiring Actaris Metering Systems in a $1.7 billion deal, the company announced this week.
Buying the Luxembourg-based company allows Itron, the leading electricity meter supplier in North America, to both branch out abroad and offer gas and water meters on this continent, according to a company news release.
The combined company will have more than 8,000 utility customers across 60 countries, 33 manufacturing plants and more than 8,500 employees.
Itron financed the deal with a $1.2 billion loan from UBS Investment Bank.
“In talking with customers, investors and employees over the past two months it is apparent that this is the right acquisition at the right time,” said LeRoy Nosbaum, chairman and CEO of Itron, in a prepared statement.
Coeur d’Alene
Hecla divests Nevada project
Hecla Mining Co. has sold its interest in a Nevada gold project to a former partner for $60 million.
Great Basin Gold purchased the Hollister Development Block for $45 million in cash and $15 million in stock. Hecla had spent about $30 million over the past two years exploring the property and developing an underground ramp at the site.
Money from the sale will be used to expand production at Hecla’s Lucky Friday mine in Mullan, Idaho.
Washington
FERC proposes new gas rules
The U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Thursday proposed new rules aimed at boosting price transparency in natural gas markets so that the commission can better detect market manipulation.
Under the proposal, interstate gas pipelines would be required to post daily capacities and volumes of natural gas flowing through their major receipt and delivery points.
The daily postings would provide FERC a better understanding of daily supply and demand conditions that affect wholesale gas markets, the commission said.
Warming could cost $919 billion
The insurer of last resort, the government faces a potential payout of at least $919 billion under a worst-case scenario of flood and crop losses due to global warming, congressional investigators say.
That total has grown from about $209 billion in 1980, and could be even higher today because it is based on two-year-old data, according to a report. It recommends an analysis of the potential long-term implications of climate change for federal flood and crop insurance programs.
“We’re looking at more floods, droughts, pestilence, fires and storms — all carrying dire economic consequences,” Sen. Joseph Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said Thursday.
Lieberman and Maine Sen. Susan Collins, the committee’s top Republican, requested the report from the Government Accountability Office, an arm of Congress.