If Pat Collawn runs the rest of PNM Resources the way she runs the annual meeting, then PNM is a tight ship indeed.
By my count the May 9 meeting took 28 minutes. The Albuquerque Journal said 35 minutes. Whatever. Speedy, in any case. Among the highlights were the zero questions after Collawn’s CEO address. She is also board chair and president.
The meeting was in the “HQ-4 Conference Center” in PNM’s new/old corporate headquarters in downtown Albuquerque. “HQ” must mean headquarters. The “4” was for fourth floor. The building, as I remember, was built as PNM’s headquarters in the 1970s or 80s and was replaced by the now-empty and for sale Alvarado Square with its long since defunct solar collectors. No demonstrators cluttered the entrance, unlike the 2012 meeting, held in an even more obscure conference room in Alvarado Square.
PNM reoccupied the renovated present headquarters in late 2012.
HQ-4 seats about 60 with tables. About 40 people attended the meeting including PNM directors and staff. PNM had 11,469 shareholders as of February 22, the proxy said. Two police officers graced the back of the room. To get to HQ-4, people had to run a security gauntlet including a security staffer joining the elevator ride to the fourth floor.
The annual report, available at the door, was just shy of a quarter inch thick. The report used only black ink. The paper was fancy newsprint with a card stock cover.
Like the annual report, Collawn’s CEO speech was without flair. Glitz came post-speech with the unveiling of a TV commercial with environmental themes. A utility has to do that, I suppose. Collawn had good words about PNM’s continuing investment in renewable energy, again a necessity. But happily the good words came without the nauseating channeling of Al Gore that accompanied similar recitations from Jeff Sterba, Collawn’s predecessor. Collawn’s meeting also came without the freebie CFL light bulbs that brightened Sterba’s meetings.
Good news for shareholders came at the end of Collawn’s remarks. The company hopes for another dividend increase at the end of 2013, she said. The current dividend is 14.5 cents per share. In 2003 the rate was 23 cents per share. It went to 16 cents per share in 2004. The rate was 12.5 cents per share for several years ending in 2011.
The past year was a “very busy but productive 12 months,” Collawn said. There is “a lot of positive news,” but also many challenges for the approximately 2,000 employees in New Mexico and Texas.
“The state of the company is strong (despite) difficult economic conditions in New Mexico.” Texas is the economic bright spot. “The economic environment (in New Mexico) is not good… that impacts PNM sales.”
The big accomplishments of the year were getting PNM’s financial condition back to enabling the company’s debt to be rated “investment grade,” meaning PNM will pay less to borrow money, and cutting a deal with the federal Environmental Protection Agency to keep the San Juan Generating Station operating, reduce emissions more than the EPA wanted and do it for much less money. The EPA is “showcasing this New Mexico agreement as the way the process should work,” Collawn said.
Showing posts with label PNM. Show all posts
Showing posts with label PNM. Show all posts
Monday, May 13, 2013
Thursday, May 17, 2012
PNM Annual Meeting Run With Total Control. Demonstrators Appear Outside.
At the annual meeting of shareholders of PNM Resources, Inc., the protesters got the headline and nearly all the story. That missed the point. But then protesters, ever theatrical, commonly get the headline while the real business goes unreported.
In previous years PNM’s annual meeting has been used as an occasion to show off the company to Albuquerque, a celebration directed especially at the individuals owning a few shares and living here. Not so at Tuesday’s meeting.
PNM’s meeting took its cues from annual meetings as an art form executed with the objective of total control. PNM’s chairman, Pat Collawn, executed the control objective perfectly. The meeting was over in 23 minutes. No one asked questions.
Perhaps 75 people attended. That included board members, staff, employees and a few regular shareholders.
After the meeting I complimented Collawn on the control of the meeting. She didn’t smile.
I was a few minutes late for the 9:00 A.M. start. Collawn was already doing her CEO address, listed as item seven on the agenda. That means she had zipped through items one through six in the near blink of an eye. Those items included electing directors and appointing the accountants.
The meeting was held in downtown Albuquerque in Alvarado Square, PNM’s soon to be abandoned signature building former headquarters that has a huge solar array on one side that hasn’t worked in decades. The entry was dark. But, yes, a security man told me, through the dark entry was the way to the meeting. The security man was one of a group of private security and city police tending the estimated 50 protesters on the sidewalk in front of Alvarado Square.
The Alvarado Square atmosphere was a long way from the relaxed and easy going situation at PNM shareholder meetings held at the South Broadway Cultural Center.
Inside, a woman stood at a high desk in the back of the lobby. She verified my name as a shareholder, checked my ID, and summoned security staff to escort me to the meeting which involved riding up one flight in the elevator. The adjacent escalator wasn’t working. Outside the elevator, the security man pointed me to another check-in table where I received the agenda and a ten-item rules and procedures sheet.
I have attended shareholders meeting for four companies, dating to Ranchers Exploration and Development Corporation as a young teenager. (Sen. Clinton Anderson spoke.) Receiving such a sheet was new, at least one with the amount of detail.
The rules included these items:
“We require attendees to honor the following rules of conduct.”
“We ask you to confine questions or comments strictly to the matter that is under consideration.”
“However the business purpose of the meeting will be strictly observed” with a list of items that might be ruled out of order.
Collawn’s CEO speech was unremarkable, which I suspect was the point from my experience in having written such speeches for CEOs of Sunwest Financial Services and its predecessor, First New Mexico Bancshares. During 2011, PNM invested $251 million, $4 million more than operations produced. In 2010, the gap was $35 million.
Collawn spoke at some length of the favorable regulatory situation in Texas where investments can be recovered faster than New Mexico. (Susana Martinez take note.) Other good news was the 40% increase in the share price during 2011 and a dividend increase.
The 2013 renewable energy plan got a summary, happily minus the channeling of Al Gore laid on at previous annual meetings by Jeff Sterba, who Collawn succeeded at the PNM helm.
For the San Juan generating station, PNM has spent more than $300 million during past few years. PNM seeks a “balanced approach” to further emissions reduction. Collawn slide past the fact the demonstrators and the EPA do not want balance, but that’s what CEOs do in shareholder meetings.
Collawn treated me to another annual meeting new experience. This was the first such meeting I have attended where the CEO has worn braces.
During and after the meeting, a woman hung out in the Alvarado Square lobby, shagging passers by such as the accountants and asking questions. She told me she was not admitted to the meeting even though she had what she and her supporters thought was a legal proxy.
Audio of the meeting is available at www.pnmresources.com/asm/annual-proxy.cfm.
In previous years PNM’s annual meeting has been used as an occasion to show off the company to Albuquerque, a celebration directed especially at the individuals owning a few shares and living here. Not so at Tuesday’s meeting.
PNM’s meeting took its cues from annual meetings as an art form executed with the objective of total control. PNM’s chairman, Pat Collawn, executed the control objective perfectly. The meeting was over in 23 minutes. No one asked questions.
Perhaps 75 people attended. That included board members, staff, employees and a few regular shareholders.
After the meeting I complimented Collawn on the control of the meeting. She didn’t smile.
I was a few minutes late for the 9:00 A.M. start. Collawn was already doing her CEO address, listed as item seven on the agenda. That means she had zipped through items one through six in the near blink of an eye. Those items included electing directors and appointing the accountants.
The meeting was held in downtown Albuquerque in Alvarado Square, PNM’s soon to be abandoned signature building former headquarters that has a huge solar array on one side that hasn’t worked in decades. The entry was dark. But, yes, a security man told me, through the dark entry was the way to the meeting. The security man was one of a group of private security and city police tending the estimated 50 protesters on the sidewalk in front of Alvarado Square.
The Alvarado Square atmosphere was a long way from the relaxed and easy going situation at PNM shareholder meetings held at the South Broadway Cultural Center.
Inside, a woman stood at a high desk in the back of the lobby. She verified my name as a shareholder, checked my ID, and summoned security staff to escort me to the meeting which involved riding up one flight in the elevator. The adjacent escalator wasn’t working. Outside the elevator, the security man pointed me to another check-in table where I received the agenda and a ten-item rules and procedures sheet.
I have attended shareholders meeting for four companies, dating to Ranchers Exploration and Development Corporation as a young teenager. (Sen. Clinton Anderson spoke.) Receiving such a sheet was new, at least one with the amount of detail.
The rules included these items:
“We require attendees to honor the following rules of conduct.”
“We ask you to confine questions or comments strictly to the matter that is under consideration.”
“However the business purpose of the meeting will be strictly observed” with a list of items that might be ruled out of order.
Collawn’s CEO speech was unremarkable, which I suspect was the point from my experience in having written such speeches for CEOs of Sunwest Financial Services and its predecessor, First New Mexico Bancshares. During 2011, PNM invested $251 million, $4 million more than operations produced. In 2010, the gap was $35 million.
Collawn spoke at some length of the favorable regulatory situation in Texas where investments can be recovered faster than New Mexico. (Susana Martinez take note.) Other good news was the 40% increase in the share price during 2011 and a dividend increase.
The 2013 renewable energy plan got a summary, happily minus the channeling of Al Gore laid on at previous annual meetings by Jeff Sterba, who Collawn succeeded at the PNM helm.
For the San Juan generating station, PNM has spent more than $300 million during past few years. PNM seeks a “balanced approach” to further emissions reduction. Collawn slide past the fact the demonstrators and the EPA do not want balance, but that’s what CEOs do in shareholder meetings.
Collawn treated me to another annual meeting new experience. This was the first such meeting I have attended where the CEO has worn braces.
During and after the meeting, a woman hung out in the Alvarado Square lobby, shagging passers by such as the accountants and asking questions. She told me she was not admitted to the meeting even though she had what she and her supporters thought was a legal proxy.
Audio of the meeting is available at www.pnmresources.com/asm/annual-proxy.cfm.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
CNM, Wells Fargo Oppose PNM Rate Hike
So does the State of New Mexico.
Well, maybe these outfits don’t directly oppose PNM’s rate increase request. But they have provided a lot of money to a group that does which puts them in the oppose PNM camp.
In the case of the state the figure is over $100,000 from something called the individual development fund account. See below.
Wells Fargo Bank and Foundation threw in at least $25,001 with at least $10,001 coming from the CNM Foundation.
The numbers come from http://prosperityworks.net/about/our-funders. This is the financial supporters section of the website of Prosperity Works, which, it says on the website, prosperityworks.net, “builds the capacity of families, organizations and communities and advocates for policies that generate economic prosperity for all New Mexicans.”
I hadn’t heard of Prosperity Works until receiving a semi-coherent email from a staffer named Carmela Starace. Ms. Starace calls herself a group. “I am one of only a handful of groups still fighting…,” she said in the email. She said the group “advocates for low income New Mexicans called Prosperity Works.” Odd name for an individual, “Prosperity Works.”
Whatever. Dangling modifiers aside, the intent is clear. PNM is evil and due no rate increase. She says, “…this rate hike is just a way to deliver big payouts to PNM shareholders at a cost to New Mexicans.” Of course she forgets, or maybe doesn’t know that large numbers of New Mexicans, me included, own PNM shares. Nearly all of these New Mexican shareholders, again including me, are well short of being plutocrats. (“Plutocrats” is a V.B. Price word, by the way.)
Starace says the rate request includes “riders.” No idea what sort of riders. Bicyclists?
My temptation to be less unkind to Ms. Starace with regard to her writing is tempered by her having six other people on staff. Surely someone is available for editing. My only excuse for my typos is that I’m proofing my own stuff, a guarantee of lack of success. That’s no excuse, just a fact.
So do the group’s “partners,” which include two Albuquerque middle schools (Grant and Wilson), the CNM Center for Working Families, Los Alamos National Bank, New Mexico Bank and Trust and 11 other financial institutions.
Other “funders” include the McCune Foundation, that paragon of support for everything left in the state.
My only request here is that when outfits such as Prosperity Works roll in asking for money, understand that mostly guilt is what they’re peddling. ACORN ran this scam for years. The providers of the big bucks might deny opposing the PNM rate hike request. But by lending credibility—and a lot of money—to Prosperity Works, they become part of whatever is being advocated. They can’t assuage that guilt and support PNM.
According to http://www.dws.state.nm.us/dws-FOA.html, “The Business Service Division (of the Department of Workforce Services) is responsible for the administration of the statewide Family Opportunity Accounts Act program. The Family Opportunity Accounts Act provides $1.5 million to support Individual Development Accounts (IDA’s) targeted to families with children. FOA's are interest-bearing bank savings accounts, in which every deposit an individual or family makes is matched with state and private dollars. The funds in the account are restricted for use in placing a down payment on a home, starting or expanding a micro-business, or paying for college or vocational education.
Well, maybe these outfits don’t directly oppose PNM’s rate increase request. But they have provided a lot of money to a group that does which puts them in the oppose PNM camp.
In the case of the state the figure is over $100,000 from something called the individual development fund account. See below.
Wells Fargo Bank and Foundation threw in at least $25,001 with at least $10,001 coming from the CNM Foundation.
The numbers come from http://prosperityworks.net/about/our-funders. This is the financial supporters section of the website of Prosperity Works, which, it says on the website, prosperityworks.net, “builds the capacity of families, organizations and communities and advocates for policies that generate economic prosperity for all New Mexicans.”
I hadn’t heard of Prosperity Works until receiving a semi-coherent email from a staffer named Carmela Starace. Ms. Starace calls herself a group. “I am one of only a handful of groups still fighting…,” she said in the email. She said the group “advocates for low income New Mexicans called Prosperity Works.” Odd name for an individual, “Prosperity Works.”
Whatever. Dangling modifiers aside, the intent is clear. PNM is evil and due no rate increase. She says, “…this rate hike is just a way to deliver big payouts to PNM shareholders at a cost to New Mexicans.” Of course she forgets, or maybe doesn’t know that large numbers of New Mexicans, me included, own PNM shares. Nearly all of these New Mexican shareholders, again including me, are well short of being plutocrats. (“Plutocrats” is a V.B. Price word, by the way.)
Starace says the rate request includes “riders.” No idea what sort of riders. Bicyclists?
My temptation to be less unkind to Ms. Starace with regard to her writing is tempered by her having six other people on staff. Surely someone is available for editing. My only excuse for my typos is that I’m proofing my own stuff, a guarantee of lack of success. That’s no excuse, just a fact.
So do the group’s “partners,” which include two Albuquerque middle schools (Grant and Wilson), the CNM Center for Working Families, Los Alamos National Bank, New Mexico Bank and Trust and 11 other financial institutions.
Other “funders” include the McCune Foundation, that paragon of support for everything left in the state.
My only request here is that when outfits such as Prosperity Works roll in asking for money, understand that mostly guilt is what they’re peddling. ACORN ran this scam for years. The providers of the big bucks might deny opposing the PNM rate hike request. But by lending credibility—and a lot of money—to Prosperity Works, they become part of whatever is being advocated. They can’t assuage that guilt and support PNM.
According to http://www.dws.state.nm.us/dws-FOA.html, “The Business Service Division (of the Department of Workforce Services) is responsible for the administration of the statewide Family Opportunity Accounts Act program. The Family Opportunity Accounts Act provides $1.5 million to support Individual Development Accounts (IDA’s) targeted to families with children. FOA's are interest-bearing bank savings accounts, in which every deposit an individual or family makes is matched with state and private dollars. The funds in the account are restricted for use in placing a down payment on a home, starting or expanding a micro-business, or paying for college or vocational education.
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