Duke Energy won't be repaid $10 million from DNC


Duke Energy won’t be repaid the $10 million line of credit it guaranteed for Charlotte to host last year’s Democratic National Convention, the company confirmed Thursday.

As the credit line came due, Duke made official what it had signaled to shareholders in an earnings report last November. Because Duke can claim the money as a business expense for tax purposes, shareholders will foot $6 million of the cost.

The DNC host committee struggled to raise money under fundraising rules set by the White House that banned corporate cash contributions. By last October, a month after the convention, it had raised $24.1 million of the original $36.6 million goal.

Duke’s financial support of Charlotte’s biggest event became a political football soon after the credit guarantee was announced in early 2011. Sidewalk protesters from FreedomWorks, a conservative group, waved “Fire Jim Rogers” signs as Duke’s CEO presided over the company’s annual meeting that spring.

Some shareholders also objected.

Concord stock owner Bonny Stilwell questioned Rogers, who led fundraising for the host committee, about the line of credit at an August 2011 meeting to vote on Duke’s merger with Progress Energy.

“If it was something he wanted Duke Energy to do,” she said then, “it should have been his $10 million and not the shareholders’.”

Duke spokesman David Scanzoni said the company heard from few shareholders. The $10 million took 1 cent off Duke’s 2012 earnings, when the nation’s biggest utility earned $1.7 billion.

“That’s a (large) sum of money, but it did not have a large impact to shareholders,” Scanzoni said. “For most stockholders, it’s not on their radar.”

I'm so surprised!