Shareholders to vote on $5.6 billion NV Energy buyout

Nati Harnik / AP

In this May 2, 2011, file photo, Warren Buffett, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, gestures during an interview in Omaha, Neb.

NV Energy has scheduled a vote for stockholders to say yea or nay to famed investor Warren Buffett’s planned buyout of the Las Vegas power company.

The vote will be held at 8 a.m. Sept. 25 at NV Energy’s corporate headquarters, 6226 W. Sahara Ave., the utility announced.

Shareholders of record as of the close of business today are eligible to vote. They can cast their ballots in person or by proxy.

Iowa-based MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co., owned by Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate, reached a deal in late May to buy NV Energy for $5.6 billion cash, or $23.75 per share.

Executives aim to close the deal in the first quarter of 2014.

Analysts have said the sale would not significantly impact NV Energy’s daily operations. That’s largely because Buffett, one of the wealthiest men in the world, is a hands-off manager who often keeps executives in place at the companies he buys. Also, at least one analyst has said ratepayers should not see their bills jump because of the sale.

NV Energy shareholders, on the other hand, would reap big bucks from the deal, including the utility’s 10 board members, each of whom holds tens of thousands of shares in the company.

President and CEO Michael Yackira, one of the highest-paid executives in the valley, would collect $21.2 million from the buyout, far more than other board members.

He would be followed by board Chairman Philip Satre at $2.7 million, former Station Casinos executive Glenn Christenson at $2.5 million and Las Vegas attorney John O’Reilly at $2 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Don Snyder, a former casino and banking executive, would net $994,745 from the sale; gold-mining executive Brian Kennedy, $877,111; Maureen Mullarkey, a former executive with slot-machine maker International Game Technology, $832,366; utility industry veteran Stephen Frank, $696,136; Florida lawyer Susan Clark, $672,434; and Michigan manufacturing executive Joseph Anderson Jr., $575,629.

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