Exelon Corp. on Tuesday announced that Corbin A. McNeill Jr., an architect of the merger between two of the country’s largest electric utilities, is stepping down as chairman and co-chief executive.
McNeill informed the company’s board of directors at its meeting in Chicago, according to Donald Kirchoffner, a spokesman for the company.
Under an unusual power-sharing plan announced in the fall of 2000 between McNeill, then the chairman, president and CEO of Philadelphia-based Peco Energy Co., and John Rowe, the chairman and chief executive of Chicago-based Unicom Corp., McNeill was to have remained co-CEO through 2003.
And while the two would have continued as co-CEOs, Rowe and McNeill were to have swapped their chairman roles at the company’s April 23 annual meeting. Rowe was to become company chairman, while McNeill was to become chairman of the board’s executive committee, the post Rowe now holds.
But McNeill, 62, a former commander of the USS Tautog nuclear submarine, decided 40 years in the business of generating power, whether for a submarine or a community, was enough.
“I was scheduled to step down as chairman this spring and believe that it is a good time for me also to step down as co-CEO and director,” McNeill said in a statement released by the company. “I am looking forward upon my retirement to spending more time with my wife, children and grandchildren.
“The company is now at a stage where it will benefit from having a single leader, and the best person for that job is John Rowe,” he said.
Wall Street analysts indicated they expected little change in direction of the company under the sole leadership of Rowe.
Shares of Exelon have risen nearly 25 percent since hitting $40 on Oct. 26, closing Tuesday at $49.71, up 4 cents on the New York Stock Exchange.
