CNP - CenterPoint to sell Arkansas Oklahoma nat gas LDC businesses for $2.15B

CenterPoint Energy (CNP) agrees to sell its Arkansas and Oklahoma natural gas LDC assets to Summit Utilities for $2.15B in cash, including recovery of $425M of unrecovered storm-related incremental natural gas costs incurred in February.The assets include 17K miles of main pipeline in Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texarkana serving more than 500K customers.CenterPoint says the deal represents a "landmark valuation" at 38x 2020 earnings and 2.5x 2020 year-end rate base.The company says sale proceeds will allow it to recycle capital to fund its 10% planned compound annual rate base growth."The ability to efficiently redeploy this capital and the eventual exit of the midstream investments will have no impact on our targeted 6%-8% annualized earnings per share growth rate. Further, we will also be eliminating the Oklahoma and Arkansas storm-related incremental natural gas cost from our balance sheet," CEO Dave Lesar says.

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CenterPoint to sell Arkansas, Oklahoma nat gas LDC businesses for $2.15B