NorthWestern Shareholders Given Rosy Picture

SUSAN GALLAGHER

BUTTE, Mont. (AP) — Electricity and natural gas supplier NorthWestern Corp. has fared relatively well amid the nation's economic turmoil, CEO Bob Rowe said at the company's annual meeting.

NorthWestern, which does business as NorthWestern Energy and sells utility service in Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska, is financially strong and the places in which it operates are "resilient and relatively healthy," said Rowe, CEO since August.

"We are quite pleased with where we find ourselves today," he told shareholders Wednesday at the annual meeting on the campus of Montana Tech in Butte. The meeting was held in this old mining city after convening in New York last year as NorthWestern moved from Nasdaq to the New York Stock Exchange.

On Thursday, South Dakota-based NorthWestern reported first-quarter net income of $22.8 million, or 63 cents per share, compared with $23.5 million, or 59 cents per share, in the first quarter of 2008. The increase in earnings per share resulted largely from a share buyback that ended in the third quarter of 2008, the company said.

Shares of NorthWestern stock fell 7 cents and were trading at $20.61 Thursday morning.