The name game.

• Author: Beck, Bill
• Position: Merger plan of PSI Energy Inc. and Indiana Bell Telephone Company Inc.'s preference to use Ameritech Corp. name

Two of Indiana's largest utilities--Indiana Bell and PSI Energy--look to operate with new names.

Analysts may look back upon the last three months of 1992 and the first six months of 1993 as an epochal era in the history of Indiana's utility industry.

During that relatively short period of time, the state's utility landscape changed as much as it's changed in the past 50 years. Among other things, two of the state's largest electric utilities engaged in an epic takeover battle. Also, Indiana Bell, the state's largest telecommunications utility, practically ceased to exist under the name customers had known for years.

The state's biggest utility news began to unfold in December, when PSI Resources Inc., the holding company for Plainfield-based PSI Energy, announced that it was planning to merge with Cincinnati Gas & Electric Co. The PSI/CG&E merger would create the nation's 13th largest electric utility.

According to the merger plan, the two utilities would create a Cincinnati-based holding company which would oversee operations in both Ohio and Indiana, Jackson Randolph, the CEO of CG&E, was to have taken the helm for a time before handing the reins over to James Rogers, PSI's CEO.

PSI expected opposition to its plan, most notably from IPALCO Enterprises, the holding company for Indianapolis Power & Light Co. But PSI expected that IPALCO might file as an intervener in the formal hearing process on the merger, to be conducted later this year by the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission.

What PSI didn't expect was what actually happened. On March 15, IPALCO Enterprises announced it was mounting an unsolicited takeover bid for PSI. The Indianapolis utility estimated that the combination of the two utilities could achieve cost savings of $1.6 billion over 10 years, more than twice the estimated $750 million savings from the combination of the Plainfield and Cincinnati utilities. IPALCO's hope was that it could save by deferring construction of a new generating plant in Southeastern Indiana until sometime after the turn of the century.

PSI issued its formal rejection of the bid by IPALCO and launched a media campaign asserting that the IPALCO plan would be a bad deal for everyone, especially customers, costing them $4 billion over 40 years. Analysts expect the increasingly heated battle could take quite some time to play out, considering a hostile utility takeover in California took years to resolve.

Another more significant change in Indiana...