By Laila Kearney
NEW YORK(Reuters) - The new head of Florida Power & Light (FP&L) has at least one important objective above and beyond running U.S. power giant NextEra's crown jewel utility, analysts say: stay out of the headlines. Armando Pimentel, who held executive roles in finance at NextEra for more than a decade before retiring in 2019, is coming back in what investors hope will mark the end of FP&L's era of political and campaign-finance scandals.
"They probably chose him to be a steady the ship-type figure," said Jack Dearing, an analyst with Washington-based Capstone LLC, which advises investors and companies on policy issues.
Pimentel replaces outgoing FP&L CEO Eric Silagy, who joined NextEra roughly two decades ago, worked as a top lobbyist for the company and has been at the center of some of its publicity problems.
Since 2020, Florida-based news organizations have reported about FP&L's role in questionable political and campaign finance-related activity.
In one Orlando Sentinel article, Silagy was accused of working with a political consultant to harass a Democratic state senator who introduced legislation unfavorable to FP&L. The Miami Herald and others reported claims that company executives worked with a consultant to derail certain state senate candidates and surveil a journalist who wrote critically about the regulated utility. Shares of NextEra sank late last month by nearly 9%, their biggest daily drop in more than two years, after the company abruptly announced Silagy would retire under the threat of a formal investigation by the Federal Election Commission into the company's political giving.
An internal NextEra investigation found no wrongdoing, executives on the company's latest earnings call said, adding that Silagy's departure was unrelated to any controversies. Pimentel has been a well-known but low-key power industry figure whose familiarity with NextEra suggests he will provide consistent leadership for with NextEra's top subsidiary, said Glenrock Associates utility analyst Paul Patterson. "I don't expect much of a change, leaving aside all of the stuff going on with the outgoing CEO," Patterson said. "I don't think you're going to see any headlines like that (with Pimentel)." Pimentel was CEO of NextEra Energy (NYSE:NEE) Resources, the company's unregulated arm focused on renewable power, for eight years before retiring in 2019. He was previously chief financial officer of NextEra Energy, a partner at Deloitte & Touche and an accounting fellow at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
A former NextEra colleague of Pimentel's, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Pimentel was a "straightforward, fact-based and driven" coworker with a calm temperament. He helped build NextEra Energy Resources and seemed to choose his retirement as opposed to being forced out, the former colleague said.
"We have welcomed Armando Pimentel back to our company and have confidence that he will use his deep industry and company experience to further strengthen the FPL organization,” NextEra Energy spokesperson David Reuter said.
An early adopter of renewable power generation, NextEra is the third-largest U.S. energy company by market capitalization behind Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM) and Chevron (NYSE:CVX). The company was trading well above its peers before news that Silagy would leave his post this month and depart the company in mid-May. Some critics of Florida Power & Light, like Alissa Jean Schafer of watchdog group Energy Policy Institute, have welcomed Pimentel's uneventful background. But it will be take more than a change of guard for the utility to shake off the scandals that took place under Silagy, said Schafer. "Even if you put somebody who is a perfectly fine individual with a financial background and doesn't have this aggressive history... it doesn't necessarily make up for the fact of all that did happen in very recent history," Schafer said.