By Maxine Shapiro, KERA 90.1 business commentator
Dallas, TX – There is much abuzz for a couple of Metroplex companies. Downgrades, upgrades, good news, wrong news. I'm Maxine Shapiro with KERA Marketplace Midday.
Okay, so let's get it straight here. Halliburton Company is moving its headquarters to Houston. The oil service company's lease expires at the end of this year and they're outta here. The Dallas Morning News seemed a little confused this weekend on when the notification of this move was made. So I called the Halliburton office for clarification. The receptionist told me she had not been officially notified; would I please call Houston? I called Houston, and spokesperson Wendy Hall told me that on July 17th, the Morning News actually printed an article about the move. I quote, "Halliburton Co. will move its corporate headquarters to Houston early next year, ending four decades as a Dallas-based company, a spokeswoman said Tuesday." Sounds clear to me.
The eighth-largest publicly traded company in the Metroplex still hasn't done an official press release, though, and that's making some journalist nuts. Ms. Hall informed me, after thinking about it a minute, why yes, they did say something at their annual shareholders meeting last May. Maybe we're just in denial. I suspect being under the thumb of thousands of asbestos lawsuits and still being under investigation for accounting problems might be taking away their focus on moving. The Dallas office employed 20 people.
Dallas-based TXU Corporation's credit rating was downgraded to "junk" status on Friday by Moody's Investment Services. They also downgraded two TXU units to the lowest "investment" grade possible. TXU will not be alone. The Wall Street Journal says that according to an analysis to be released tomorrow, by Fitch Ratings, another credit rating service, "nearly 40% of the utility-holding companies and half of the merchant generators," will face possible downgrades. But the good news for TXU - a couple of Wall Street firms upgraded its stock today. The move was warranted by the fact TXU has eaten the loose in Europe and that's behind them.
And by the way, today's Journal said TXU was Houston-based. Wrong. For KERA Marketplace Midday, I'm Maxine Shapiro.
Marketplace Midday Reports air on KERA 90.1 Monday - Friday at 1:04 p.m. To contact Maxine Shapiro, please send emails to mshapiro@kera.org.