Entergy Corporation (NYSE: ETR (http://www.nyse.com/about/listed/lcddata.html?ticker=ETR)), based in New Orleans, Louisiana, is a Delaware chartered corporation engaged in electric power production, retail distribution operations, energy marketing and trading, and gas transportation. It owns and operates power plants with approximately 30,000 megawatts of generating capacity. It has annual revenues of approximately $9 billion dollars, according to a November 2004 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Entergy has three main operating segments: U.S. Utility, Non-Utility Nuclear, and Energy Commodity Services.

The U.S. utility segment provides retail electricity services to approximately 2.6 millions customers in Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas.

The non-utility nuclear segment operates nuclear plants in New York, Massachusetts, Vermont, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. On January 1, 2003 the company informed employees of two nuclear power plants in New York that it was suspending additional participation in domestic partner benefits.

Until quite recently, its energy commodity services segment consisted chiefly of its share of a derivatives trading concern, Entergy-Koch, a joint venture co-owned by Koch Energy, Inc., a subsidiary of Koch Industries, Inc., Wichita, Kansas.

On November 1, 2004, Entergy and Koch announced that they were selling this venture to Merrill Lynch & Co. Entergy expects to receive its share of the proceeds from this sale (ultimately grossing $1 billion) in a stream of payments continuing through 2006. Entergy's energy commodity segment also includes the Gulf South Pipeline, which is also up for sale.

History

The company was formerly known as Middle South Utilities, Inc. It was using that name when it turned toward coal and nuclear-fired plants in the period 1973-74, the years of the first so-called "oil shock."

MSU adopted the name Entergy in May 1989 at a shareholder's meeting in Natchez, Mississippi. The name is supposed to convey elements of synergy, enterprise, and energy, and the company wanted to leave behind the label "utility" with its connotation of tradition-bound regulated monopolies. A new corporate logo was also adopted.

Also in 1989, MSU/Entergy wrote off one of the biggest losses ever absorbed by an electricity generating company -- it wrote off $900 million it had invested in a never-completed nuclear power plant known as Grand Gulf 2, as part of a deal that settled litigation surrounding rate collection for its Grand Gulf 1.

In 1993, Entergy absorbed Gulf States Utilities, gaining nearly 600,000 customers.

External Links

• Entergy (http://www.entergy.com)
• Koch (http://www.kochind.com)