On Monday, Duke Energy Field Services — one of seven business segments of giant Duke Energy — promoted Rose Robeson to CFO. Robeson joined the natural gas specialist in May 2000 as treasurer… Loads of energy companies, Duke included, blamed disappointing Q4 results on — what else? — the weather. Say mild temps lowered consumer power consumption. We’ll bite… Company earned 35 cents a share in fourth quarter, down 21 percent from a year ago. Worse, consensus estimate of analysts polled by Thomson Financial/First Call was 45 cents a share… Good news for Duke: it’s starting to get cold again. Not so great for warm-blooded types… Duke Energy is JV with Phillips Petroleum…
Michael Dwyer has been named new CFO at ILEX Oncology. Dwyer, who most recently served as ILEX’s chief business officer, has worn the ILEX CFO mantel before. Joined company in 1998 as finance chief and president of contract research services business… Dwyer replaces Gregory Weaver. Weaver, at ILEX since 1999, takes on newly created role of vice president of strategic development… Last week, ILEX management said its new leukemia drug, Campath, generated sales of $27 million during its first seven months of commercial availability. Expects sales to hit $52 million or so in 2002. ILEX acquired the drug from co-developer Millennium Pharmaceuticals in October for $140 million. Bill to paid over next three years… ILEX to report earnings for Q4 and full year after market close today… Dwyer’s been making out okay at ILEX. According to Yahoo Finance, on May 1 Dwyer exercised options to buy 16,000 shares of ILEX at $12.56 per. Same day, he bought another 6,250 shares at $10.94 a piece. Total cost of purchase: about $270,000. Ten days later, Dwyer sold all those shares at around $20 per share — pocketing $441,000… ILEX shares trading at around $21 today…
AmerUs Group, the life insurance and annuity holding company, has named Melinda Urion CFO, effective March 1. Urion succeeds the late Michael Fraizer, who died in August… Urion will manage company’s financial and treasury operations, including capital planning, banking relations, financial reporting, tax and audit functions… From 1997 to 2000, Urion worked at Fortis Financial Group… AmerUS to announce Q4 earnings at the close of the stock market today… As of September 30, 2001, AmerUs Group’s total assets were $18.1 billion. None related to Enron though. How do we know? In December, company put out press release stating it had no exposure to troubled energy trader. Given recent market mauling of companies with Enron ties, Dec. statement looking like prudent move…