NEW YORK (Standard&Poor's) Jan. 10, 2006--Standard&Poor's Ratings Services said today that Duke Energy Corp.'s (BBB/Stable/A-2) announcement that it is selling 6,200 MW of merchant generation assets in the west and northeast U.S. to LS Power Equity Partners is positive for credit quality but does not immediately affect the company's ratings. Duke had announced in early fall 2005 that it would sell these plants. Duke also sold its portfolio of derivative contracts to Barclays Capital while divesting of the bulk of its physical contracts. As a result of these transactions, Duke's business risk profile improves to '6' (satisfactory) from '7' (weak) (business risk profiles are ranked from '1' (excellent) to '10' (vulnerable)). At the same time, Duke
