By AP/KWMU
St. Louis, MO – It appears Illinois Power customers in the Metro-East will soon be Ameren customers. St. Louis-based Ameren announced plans this morning (Tuesday) to buy Illinois Power.
The deal is worth $2.3 billion, but most of that ($1.8 billion) represents debt that Ameren will assume. If the sale goes through, Ameren would have more customers in Illinois than Missouri.
Illinois Power will become Ameren IP and there's currently a rate freeze in Illinois, which means the buyout would not affect customers' bills.
Houston-based Dynegy currently owns Illinois Power; it entered into exclusive talks with Ameren in December to sell IP after a deal to sell the utility to Chicago-based Exelon fell apart in November. Exelon owns Commonwealth Edison.
Ameren has about 970,000 electric and natural gas customers in Illinois; Illinois Power serves about 670,000 electric and 415,000 natural gas customers in Illinois.
The deal also will allow Dynegy to leave its smallest and only regulated business behind to focus on power generation and natural gas liquids.