Competition As A Springboard.

INCREASED OPPORTUNITY AND INCLUSIVENESS

Address by WILLIAM CAVANAUGH, Carolina Power & Light Chairman, President and CEO

Delivered to the American Association of Blacks in Energy 23rd National Conference, Atlanta, Georgia, March 3, 2000

Thank you very much for inviting me to speak at this year's conference. My topic is "Competition as a springboard for increased opportunity" and I can tell you there's a great deal of truth in that statement.

Competition -- if you're good at it -- does lead to opportunity. At CP&L, for instance, our industry's new competitive nature gave us the chance to acquire a natural gas company to complement our electric business. Now we're a total energy provider. We're also making a profit in the energy services market. But our biggest accomplishment to date is our merger with another electric utility, Florida Progress Corporation. This fall we'll be competing in a new geographic market.

Opportunities clearly exist. But before you're able to pursue and successfully capitalize on them, you have to be a good competitor. How do you do that?

In my opinion, you have to attract -- and retain -- the basic components of the market. And that goes beyond capturing and holding market share. It also means working with the best suppliers and -- at the heart of the matter -- attracting and retaining the best employees.

Now it's true that companies can make great strides in a business environment stoked by competition and the innovation it encourages …