NEW YORK (Standard&Poor's) Feb. 18, 2014--Standard&Poor's Ratings Services said today that Duke Energy Corp.'s announcement that it plans to divest its Midwest merchant generation operations and that it will incur an impairment charge of $1 billion to $2 billion in first quarter 2014 have no immediate impact on the company's ratings. While we view a successful divestiture of the Midwest generation assets as strengthening Duke Energy's credit profile, we will assess the benefits and timing of the asset sale against the company's plan to maintain the current level of unregulated exposure contribution through the growth of additional nonregulated solar renewable investments.
