Dominion Power 2000 Annual Report Download - page 21

Download and view the complete annual report

Please find page 21 of the 2000 Dominion Power annual report below. You can navigate through the pages in the report by either clicking on the pages listed below, or by using the keyword search tool below to find specific information within the annual report.

Page out of 76

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9
  • 10
  • 11
  • 12
  • 13
  • 14
  • 15
  • 16
  • 17
  • 18
  • 19
  • 20
  • 21
  • 22
  • 23
  • 24
  • 25
  • 26
  • 27
  • 28
  • 29
  • 30
  • 31
  • 32
  • 33
  • 34
  • 35
  • 36
  • 37
  • 38
  • 39
  • 40
  • 41
  • 42
  • 43
  • 44
  • 45
  • 46
  • 47
  • 48
  • 49
  • 50
  • 51
  • 52
  • 53
  • 54
  • 55
  • 56
  • 57
  • 58
  • 59
  • 60
  • 61
  • 62
  • 63
  • 64
  • 65
  • 66
  • 67
  • 68
  • 69
  • 70
  • 71
  • 72
  • 73
  • 74
  • 75
  • 76

Last year, I told you I wanted our senior management—an energetic,
ambitious bunch—to begin each day warm under the collar at any thought
or hint of a decline in share value or dividend reductions.
Under voluntary guidelines adopted by our board, Dominion’s
officers are expected to own company shares in amounts totaling from
three to eight times their base salaries. This is a major obligation
which required most officers to borrow money. Loans to purchase
these shares come due in five years, and our dividends help pay the
interest. We’re all personally on the hook if, in the interim, we have
not made sound business decisions and grown the company profitably.
Last year, I purchased an additional ten times my annual salary in shares,
making me one of the company’s largest individual shareholders.
Together, our senior management team also makes up one of the largest
shareholder groups, with more than 2.4 million shares valued at year
end in excess of $161 million.
Overall, our entire family of employees—executives, management,
staff, field or supervision—own about 15.6 million shares. At year’s end,
our total investment in our business exceeded $1 billion. Employees are
Dominion’s biggest shareholder as a group, a confidence vote straight
from the pocketbook.
In the telecommunications and technology arena, we’re fortunate to have
in-house expertise at Dominion Telecom that opens new opportunities.
Dominion Telecom plans to invest approximately $700 million over the
next two to three years to build out our fiber-optic network. We’ll use our
expanded network—planned to span more than 9,000 route miles—to
provide Internet, video conferencing and other broadband services.
Yes, we’re looking to be a niche player. We aren’t interested in going
toe-to-toe with the national telecoms. But we see a real opportunity in
offering telecom capacity to Cleveland, Buffalo, Toledo and other under-
served cities in our core energy markets.
19
Last year, I purchased an additional ten times my annual salary in shares,
making me one of the company’s largest individual shareholders.
Voting with Our Pocketbooks
Technology and Telecommunications: New Opportunities