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With the loss of Eugene, Powerman Raver began to turn his interest from PUDs and Municipals to industrial customers. On that front he had better luck. The luck: defense expansion, which found BPA (unlike most private utilities) with plenty of firm power to spare. First, he got Aluminum Co. to build a new plant in Vancouver; soon he lured other new industries to the quiet Columbia Valley. BPA, thanks to its industrial clients, now has contracts (of varying length) totaling well over $50,000,000.
With Coulee's enormous load added, the industrialization of the Northwest proceeds apace. But the influx of new customers does not cheer the eleven private utilities. They know Raver's 100% public-power dream proceeds apace too.
Ten weeks ago Dr. Raver took on his Biggest private adversary first. He was bald, thin-nosed Donald C. Barnes, president of Engineers Public Service, which owns Puget Sound Power & Light. No amateur fighter is Utilitycoon Barnes ; for 35 years his company has fought off purchase by Seattle City Light. But when Raver offered to buy out Puget Sound, Veteran Barnes (with Wendell Willkie's experience to guide him) knew the only real question would be price. Raver had another new weapon: SEC's tentative integration plan for E. P. S. (issued this month) implies that Puget Sound has no place in its system.
As to price, nobody knows what figures (if any) have been mentioned in the Barnes-Raver tête-à-têtes. Puget Sound has total assets of $137,343,000, and E. P. S. (which owns 99.3% of the common) has sunk some $33,000,000 in the property. Before he can claim anything for his common, Mr. Barnes must get $70,000,000 for Puget Sound's bonds and prior preference stock, and satisfy the holders of $26,400,000 of preferred, who also, with the prior preference, are owed $16,224,000 in arrearages. That means he must get Dr. Raver to pay something over $100,000,000 and persuade preferred holders to cut their claims. He may.
Meanwhile ten other Northwest private utilities watched the Raver-Barnes negotiations, wondered how soon their turn would come and what the price would be.