THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, July 22, 1995 TAG: 9507220242
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVE MAYFIELD, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Short : 32 lines
Air conditioners all over Virginia are blasting now, but remember those unusually cool days in May and June?
They wrecked Dominion Resources Inc.'s bottom line in the second quarter.
On Friday, the Richmond-based holding company, parent of Virginia Power, said its second-quarter earnings tumbled from the year before. That was largely because the mild weather not long ago kept air-conditioner use, and thus electricity demand, down.
Dominion's total net income fell to $78.1 million, or 45 cents a share, in the latest quarter from $136.2 million, or 80 cents a share, the year before. The previous year's profit included an extraordinary gain equal to 17 cents a share from the sale of a stake in a natural-gas trust.
Overall revenues were up slightly - to a $1.04 billion, in part because of Dominion Resources' forays into nonutility ventures.
The company's actual profits from those ventures - ranging from financial services to land development - fell, however, in the latest period.
Dominion's problems have won the attention of securities analysts, several of whom have downgraded their rating of the company's stock over the past week. by CNB