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Show ‘THE SEARCHLIGHT — Kilowatt Crew Unrepentant (Continued from. cher cusital? Bond’ g Such a merger preceding Share ocean constitutes facilities creased efficiency and perhaps the business proposal of Utah be merged business that Light with the Traction transportation Company Company’s matter. in- reduced costs. bus Power is a different inflation. that promises the & of a sensible integra- tion..of operating But page) also electric It is based on the wholly ficitious claim that a merger is a necessary step in re-financing the Power Company. He also has approaching Moreover, last ten to be secured gent a mortgage properties of the two concerns. is to be left outside Why then dissimilar the bond when the electric The bus business transaction. is it necessary businesses on to merge the two utility totally policy of both the State and Federal Governments prescribes an opposite course? No valid justification for any merger of electric and transportation fa- cilities of the two companies has thus far been forthcoming from the Power Company, or from its new-found preferred stockholder apologists. The proposed consolidation of Utah Power & Light with Western Colorado Power Company has even less justification. The two companies are not inter-connected. They probably never will be. Western Colorado Power serves a sparsely settled, mountainous region whose prospects of industrialization are exceedingly remote. The cost per customer of serving such territory is much higher than similar service in central and northern Utah. And, worst of all, Mr. Gadsby proposes to bring the Colorado company into the consolidation without first dehydrating it.* He wants the Power Company to swallow it, water and all. Under cross examination Mr. Gads- by has admitted that the Colorado company has something like 4% millions (about 50%) of inflation in its financial structure. *“Mr. Gadsby seems bent on giving Pilfer & Loot’. Colorado point where Pow- for a considerable years way, Colorado and parent, has its properties off. has period Power leaned has forgiven the during failed rather its corporate parent, Utah Power pany. And the Power Company, to heavily the pay on & Light Comlike an indul- debt. The money Colorado Power received from Utah Power & Light has been squeezed out of Utah rate payers. Under such circumstances it is difficult to see how the Public Service Commission of Utah and the Securities & Exchange Commission can give their approval to any consolidation that goes a single step beyond combining the electric properties of Utah Light & Traction Company and Utah Power & Light Company. Since the first of the year a group of Salt Lake City business men and bankers, led by William D. Nebeker, Jr., self-styled ‘‘investment counsel’’, has come into the kilowatt picThe group purports to represent preture. ferred stockholders of Utah Power & Light Its spokesmen loudly proclaim that Company. they seek only to protect the interests of the preferred stockholders.* The group kicks up quite a fuss in the But invariably it asks press and otherwise. for the identical things George M. Gadsby wants. For public consumption the group says that Electric Power & Light Cohporation, own(voting of common er of 3 million shares stock) of Utah Power & Light must be kicked out. It says that Bond & Share must go. But Mr. Gadsby makes similar statements, (Continued further point to the witticism of an observing Ogden woman who referred to the Power Company as “Utah the ought to be written its own by that er’s depreciation account stands at 3.6%, which is woefully short of an adequate depreciation account for a company that has had only one substantial construction addition to its plant in the thirty years of the existence of the Company, and at this late date should be The proposed bond issue of the reorganized Power Company will not cover Traction’s bus equipment, nor its business. That bond issue is only admitted *Methinks test he on (Bill overmuch”.—W. S. following page) Nebeker, etc.) doth pro- |