No Surrender for Edison

The Feb. 8 article, “Edison All but Surrendering in Power Wars,” created a misleading impression about our business strategy. Far from surrendering to our competition, we have actually gone beyond the more publicized and less profitable playing field of commodity electricity sales simply because we see greater opportunities elsewhere. At Edison Enterprises, we have a unique knowledge base that enables us to compete outside the more narrowly defined power wars.

In fact, with revenues of $10.8 billion, Edison International is one of the world’s largest companies in the energy business and has most definitely not “withdrawn from the power market,” as was reported. We are creating customer and shareholder value by providing a wide range of retail and commercial products and services that best leverage our expertise and the demands of the market.

It is also important to clarify that Edison Enterprises, an unregulated marketing company, is not the same company as the regulated utility Southern California Edison. Both companies, though, are subsidiaries of Edison International. In addition to “one major success among its unregulated businesses, Edison Mission Energy,” the article omitted reference to Edison Capital, which saw its net income increase 73 percent in 1998.

Fundamentally, Edison International believes what customers seek is value, and the value we can provide in a deregulated market is not limited to the commodity sale of electricity. The good news for us is that our strategy bas been and continues to prove successful, as is evidenced by our growing ranks of satisfied customers.

JANINE AMES

Executive Director, Marketing

Edison Enterprises