FirstEnergy CEO Clarifies Regarding Separation Of Company, FirstEnergy Solutions

(RTTNews) - FirstEnergy Corp. (FE) on Monday issued a statement from Chief Executive Officer Charles Jones to clarify several points he made during a conference call on Friday , July 24, 2020 to discuss the company's second-quarter financial results.

Regarding the separation of FirstEnergy and FirstEnergy Solutions or FES, Jones noted that the separation process of the two companies commenced when FirstEnergy announced a strategic review of competitive generation in November of 2016.

In November 2016, the FES board was replaced with two independent board members and three new board members from the competitive generation business. FirstEnergy and FES independently engaged legal and financial advisors to help guide each company through a complicated strategic review.

However, as events unfolded, the focus of FES turned increasingly to bankruptcy as the sole alternative, culminating with the bankruptcy filing in March 2018. Immediately after, FES was deconsolidated from FirstEnergy's financial statements, the CEO said.

Jones noted that during the conference call, he had denied that First Energy was "running external affairs" for FES following the separation of the two companies.

"While FES received support from FirstEnergy's External Affairs team to varying degrees, that support decreased over time, particularly, as the FES bankruptcy approached. FES made its own decisions after its new board was in place with respect to its external affairs strategy," Jones clarified in the statement.