Scana a Great Utility Value After Dropping Nuclear Project

Travis Miller: Nuclear power has been in the news a lot recently in the United States, especially in Georgia and South Carolina, where two utilities, Scana and Southern Company, are trying to build the first two nuclear plants in several decades.

One of those, Scana, has recently decided to abandon its nuclear project. Investors in the market had put a lot of risk on Scana and weren't sure if they were going to complete that nuclear plant. When they decided to abandon that plant, the market got really excited for a couple of days. But after that, the market has realized there is a lot of risk if Scana is going to recover some of its investment that it's made.

That investment totals about $2.2 billion that they will have to recover. However, when we look at the stock, a lot more value is priced out of that stock than the $2.2 billion that they could lose. Right now, Scana trades at a 7% discount to our fair value estimate and only a 14 times price/earnings ratio.

That is well below what the utilities sector trades at right now. The utilities sector overall is quite overvalued. Thus, Scana, trading at a discount to our fair value estimate, is a phenomenal relative value right now.