Corning Natural Gas buys PCL&P for $16 million
MILFORD — Orange & Rockland Utilities and Corning Natural Gas Holding Corporation this week announced an agreement for Corning to purchase O&R’s Pennsylvania electric and gas utility subsidiary, Pike County Light and Power Co. (PCL&P) for $16 million.
Upon closing, PCL&P will be a wholly-owned subsidiary of Corning. The boards of directors of O&R and Corning have approved the transaction.
PCL&P is a regulated electric and gas utility that provides electric service to approximately 4,600 customers in the Townships of Westfall, Milford and the northern part of Dingman and in the Boroughs of Milford and Matamoras. PCL&P provides natural gas service to 1,200 customers in Westfall Township and the Borough of Matamoras. All of these communities are located in Pike County.
Corning says its acquisition of PCL&P is an ideal strategic fit, increasing its footprint in Pennsylvania and providing more opportunities to expand into the state. Upon closing, Corning will have approximately $85 million in assets, increasing the company size by 30 percent.
“Over the past several years, Corning has made a number of key strategic advances for the further development of our business in Pennsylvania," said Corning President and CEO Michael I. German in a press release. "Our purchase of PCL&P aligns well with those successes and establishes a broader, more robust platform that can take our company to the next level. We look forward to providing our new customers with continued safe and reliable service, and to creating new job opportunities in Pike County.”
O&R President and CEO Tim Cawley said there was strong market interest in PCL&P from a number of good companies. "One company stood out among the others in terms of resources, customer focus and emphasis on service reliability, and that’s what brought us to today," he said.
He told the Courier that O&R plans to limit its future operations to New York and New Jersey.
PCL&P has been a subsidiary of O&R since around 1917, he said.
O&R was acquired in 1999 by Con Edison.
The closing of the transaction with Corning, which is expected to occur by mid-2016, is subject to certain regulatory approvals, including approval by the Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission. Cawley told the Courier that rates are regulated, and that current rates will remain until 2017.
In the meantime, PCL&P will still be providing electric and gas service to Pike County. Its customers should continue to call PCL&P at 1-877-434-4100 to report outages, request emergency repairs or ask questions about service or billing. Customers who smell gas or suspect a gas leak should continue to call PCL&P’s Gas Emergency Hotline at 1-800-533-LEAK (5325).