April 30 (Reuters) - U.S. energy company Southern Co said this week it agreed to sell its Sequent Energy Management wholesale gas trading business, which made about $200 million selling natural gas during the Texas freeze in February.
"Sequent was able to step into the breach and sell a lot of gas in storage," Southern Chief Executive Tom Fanning told analysts on an earnings call on Thursday.
Fanning said the company "took $75 million or so of that $200 million and put it into our foundation ... to get reploughed back into communities."
Fanning said "you'll see net income for Sequent in the first quarter of around $133 million."
Fanning said since 2010, Sequent's net income has averaged about $40 million a year but noted that was mostly due to two big years - one of $260 million and one of $163 million.
"If you exclude those big years ... they averaged about $4 million of net income," Fanning said.
Sequent is part of Southern's Southern Co Gas business, which is one of the biggest gas marketers in the United States. Energy traders say Sequent is the reason Southern Co Gas is such a big marketer.
Southern's Chief Financial Officer Andrew Evans said the company does "not expect a material gain or loss on the sale of the business."
Evans said the sale "will provide ... the elimination of certain credit supports of approximately $1 billion."
Evans noted Southern has "always excluded Sequent's earnings from our adjusted results due to its quarterly variability. So the sale ... reduces risk and has no impact on our adjusted (earnings per share) expectations for the remainder of the year."
Southern said it expects to complete the transaction in the third quarter.
Evans said Southern did not announce the buyer "because it's something that they will likely announce on their earnings call."
(Reporting by Scott DiSavino Editing by Marguerita Choy)
((scott.disavino@thomsonreuters.com; +1 332 219 1922; Reuters Messaging: scott.disavino.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))
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