Dollar generates £400m for ScotPower

SCOTTISHPOWER, which has had its full share of upsets from US subsidiary PacifiCorp, today revealed a £400m windfall thanks to canny hedging of the dollar.

The bonanza will be used to repay debt, which was just short of £5bn at the end of the last financial year.

The news comes as a relief to British investors worried by the effect of the plunging dollar on UK companies' profitability. Eight FTSE 100 companies depend on North America for more than two-thirds of their sales.

ScotPower treasurer Adrian Coats has already been acknowledged by utility analysts as having been skilled in protecting the group's US income against the weakening dollar.

But the analysts were today pleasantly surprised to find that, in lifting his hedge against the value from last year's $1.40 to $1.50 for the coming year, Coats had collected the group a profit of £400m.

ScotPower bought PacifiCorp in 1999 and was plunged into crisis two years later as its management misjudged the impact of the California power crisis. New local management and tougher oversight from the UK have turned the US business around since then.

ScotPower will brief analysts shortly, before entering purdah between Wednesday's year-end and publication of its results on 25 April.

This is later than usual because the company, which has traditionally been one of the fastest to report, has decided to produce its preliminary figures and audited accounts on the same day.