Standard&Poor's Ratings Services noted that Duke Energy Inc. (A/Stable/A-1) announced today that it plans a public offering of 52 million shares of its common stock. This will provide proceeds of $1 billion (at Tuesday's closing price of $19.24 per share), which will be used to pay down a like amount of commercial paper that had financed a portion of the Westcoast Energy Inc. acquisition. Duke Energy had indicated that it would complete the equity financing by year-end 2002 in order to bolster its balance sheet. This action was anticipated by Standard&Poor's and has already been factored into the rating.
