JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – City leaders might be tight-lipped about privatizing JEA, but already one potential suitor has emerged.
Florida Power & Light, the state’s largest utility company, is not ruling out a bid to buy the publicly-owned utility, FPL President and CEO Eric Silagy told the Jacksonville Daily Record on Friday.
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“We’re going through the qualifications,” Silagy said after speaking at a St. Johns County Chamber of Commerce breakfast. “We’re of course interested. JEA is a great organization.”
Silagy’s remarks come two weeks after JEA posted an “invitation to negotiate” in search of outside firms that would be open to buying its assets or taking over management of the utility.
Since then, little else has trickled out. A law firm advising JEA on the matter called for a “cone of silence” limiting privatization talks to “ensure that JEA runs a fair and proper procurement process.”
Though Mayor Lenny Curry has said he would not consider a sale unless there were protections in place for customers and employees, he noted that selling JEA could wipe out the city’s debts.