Northeast Utilities’ merger partner NStar suffered a 64 percent drop in its second quarter earnings this year, profiting a total of $61.1 million from April to June.
Boston-based NStar has proposed a $4.7 billion merger with Hartford-based Northeast Utilities to create the largest utility in New England with 3.5 million customers and four electric and two natural gas subsidiaries in Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, including Berlin-based Connecticut Light & Power and Yankee Gas.
NStar’s second quarter earnings of $61.1 million, or 59 cents per share, was a significant drop from the $171 million, or $1.61 per share, the company made in the second quarter of 2010.
The Boston utilities’ earning report characterizes those figures as misleading, saying the company suffered a one-time expense of $1.1 million related to the merger this year while benefitting from a $109.4 million sale of its district energy operations in 2010. Excluding those one-time figures, NStar said the second quarter this year was better than the second quarter last year, up 1 percent.
Second-quarter revenues for NStar were $651.4 million in the second quarter 2011 compared to $656.6 million in the second quarter 2010, a 0.89 percent decrease.
