• Net income should increase 37% in 2001, to $2.15 billion, on operating revenues of $68.4 billion
• The $8.5 billion purchase of Westcoast Energy lets Duke accelerate construction of new power plants in the Western U.S.
PHOTO BY STEVE EXUM
Richard B. Priory may be soft-spoken, but he thrives on competition. A talented baseball player, Priory won a tryout with the New York Mets after high school--but lost the last farm team slot to future star Ron Swoboda. Priory refused to hang up his cleats, though, and despite a series of broken bones, he played fast-pitch softball well into his 40s for a Charlotte (N.C.) team known as the Pac-Men.
As chief executive of Duke Energy Corp. (DUK
), the 55-year-old Priory has used a Pac-Man strategy to transform the company from a regional electric utility into an integrated energy provider. In his four years at the helm, Priory has been on an acquisition tear--swinging more than 80 deals--to gain control of everything from gas reserves to pipelines to power plants. Duke's pieces fit together well: Even as energy prices wane, it continues to generate ever-higher profits from its vast operations. Net income was on track to rise 37%, to $2.15 billion, in 2001, on top of a 17% jump the year before. "It has been a fun ride," he says with a smile.
Not that any of this was easy. After taking over in 1997, Priory set out to overhaul Duke's bureaucratic culture. Eventually, he replaced one-third of the top executives with more entrepreneurial outsiders. And while Priory's 1997 acquisition of a natural gas provider was at first ridiculed on Wall Street, it gave the ex-college professor the power source to begin producing and reselling energy to smaller utilities in states that had deregulated. Duke now generates 95% of its revenues from unregulated transactions. "He's willing to take bigger and bolder steps than other utility executives," says Kit Konolige, an analyst at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co. At the same time, Priory has carefully hedged most of Duke's activities in these new markets--an approach that's helped insulate Duke from the post-Enron fallout that's hit the rest of the industry. That's why Duke's flame is burning bright.
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Copyright 2002 , by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.
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Key Accomplishments
