Document


UNITED STATES
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Washington, D. C. 20549

FORM 8-K

CURRENT REPORT

PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE
SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

Date of Report (Date of earliest event reported): November 15, 2018

Commission
 
Registrant; State of Incorporation;
 
I.R.S. Employer
File Number
 
Address; and Telephone Number
 
Identification No.
 
 
 
 
 
333-21011
 
FIRSTENERGY CORP.
 
34-1843785
 
 
(An Ohio Corporation)
 
 
 
 
76 South Main Street
 
 
 
 
Akron, OH  44308
 
 
 
 
Telephone (800)736-3402
 
 
 
 
 
 
 





Check the appropriate box below if the Form 8-K filing is intended to simultaneously satisfy the filing obligation of the registrant under any of the following provisions (see General Instruction A.2.):

[ ] Written communications pursuant to Rule 425 under the Securities Act (17 CFR 230.425)
[ ] Soliciting material pursuant to Rule 14a-12 under the Exchange Act (17 CFR 240.14a-12)
[ ] Pre-commencement communications pursuant to Rule 14d-2(b) under the Exchange Act (17 CFR 240.14d-2(b))
[ ] Pre-commencement communications pursuant to Rule 13e-4(c) under the Exchange Act (17 CFR 240.13e-4(c))

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is an emerging growth company as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act of 1933 (17 CFR §230.405) or Rule 12b-2 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (17 CFR §240.12b-2).
Emerging growth company ☐

If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act. ☐



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Item 5.02 Departure of Directors or Certain Officers; Election of Directors; Appointment of Certain Officers; Compensatory Arrangements of Certain Officers.

As previously announced, on March 31, 2018 FirstEnergy Solutions Corp. (FES), all of its subsidiaries, and FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company (collectively, the FES Debtors), each wholly-owned subsidiaries of FirstEnergy Corp. (FirstEnergy), voluntarily filed petitions for relief under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Ohio in Akron (the Bankruptcy Court). Additionally, on August 26, 2018, FirstEnergy, the FES Debtors, certain key creditor groups, and the official committee of unsecured creditors entered into a definitive settlement agreement, which was approved by order of the Bankruptcy Court on September 26, 2018. The settlement agreement permitted, among other things, FES to provide a voluntary enhanced retirement option to its employees for which FirstEnergy agreed to pay for the costs of the temporary pension enhancement portion (capped at, $1,500 per month per eligible employee until age 65 or a minimum of two years).

On November 15, 2018, the board of directors of FES adopted a Voluntary Early Retirement Option (the FES VERO), in which the FES President, Donald R. Schneider, who is deemed a named executive officer of FirstEnergy, is eligible to participate. The FES VERO will be effective as of January 2, 2019.

The terms for the FES VERO, other than the election period and eligible participants, are substantially similar to the previously disclosed Voluntary Enhanced Retirement Program (VERP) and Executive Voluntary Enhanced Retirement Program (E-VERP) that FirstEnergy previously implemented in early June and July 2018, respectively. The FirstEnergy VERP and E-VERP were offered to eligible non-bargaining employees, other than the CEO, in FirstEnergy’s shared services, utility services, and sustainability organizations. Certain FES employees designated as “insiders” in applicable bankruptcy filings (FES Insiders), including Mr. Schneider, are subject to additional terms of the FES VERO.

Active FES employees who are age 58 or older with at least 10 years of service as of such employee’s retirement date, are eligible to participate in the FES VERO. The FES VERO includes the following benefits:
•
a lump-sum payment equivalent to what the employee would have received under the applicable FirstEnergy severance benefits plan (subject to caps for FES Insiders in accordance with bankruptcy law and the Bankruptcy Court’s order);
•
a continuation of health care benefits for the equivalent severance period, up to a maximum of 18 months;
•
a temporary monthly pension enhancement of $1,500 up to age 65, with a minimum of 24 monthly payments; and
•
payment of unused paid time off.

Benefits are contingent upon the execution and non-revocation of a release of claims acceptable to FES. Retirements under the FES VERO will begin January 2, 2019 and continue until the earlier of December 31, 2019 or the effective date of a court-approved plan of reorganization for FES. Individual retirement dates will be determined by FES based on its business requirements. Eligible employees will be notified and given until December 28, 2018, to elect whether or not to participate. FES Insiders will be separately notified and given until January 16, 2019, to elect to participate, which election is revocable until January 23, 2019.

The above description of the FES VERO does not purport to be complete and is qualified in its entirety by reference to the FES VERO program document, which is filed as Exhibit 10.1 hereto and incorporated herein by reference.

Item 9.01 Financial Statements and Exhibits
(d)
Exhibits
Exhibit No.
 
Description
10.1
 



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Forward-Looking Statements: This Form 8-K includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 based on information currently available to management. Such statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties and readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. These statements include declarations regarding management's intents, beliefs and current expectations. These statements typically contain, but are not limited to, the terms “anticipate,” “potential,” “expect,” "forecast," "target," "will," "intend," “believe,” "project," “estimate," "plan" and similar words. Forward-looking statements involve estimates, assumptions, known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements, which may include the following: the ability to successfully execute an exit of commodity-based generation that minimizes cash outflows and associated liabilities, including, without limitation, the losses, guarantees, claims and other obligations of FirstEnergy Corp. (FE), together with its consolidated subsidiaries (FirstEnergy), as such relate to the entities previously consolidated into FirstEnergy, including FirstEnergy Solutions Corp. (FES), its subsidiaries, and FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company (FENOC), which have filed for bankruptcy protection (FES Bankruptcy); the risks that conditions to the definitive settlement agreement with respect to the FES Bankruptcy may not be met or that the settlement agreement may not be otherwise consummated, and if so, the potential for litigation and payment demands against FirstEnergy by FES, FENOC or their creditors; the risks associated with the FES Bankruptcy that could adversely affect FirstEnergy, its liquidity or results of operations; the accomplishment of our regulatory and operational goals in connection with our transmission and distribution investment plans; changes in assumptions regarding economic conditions within our territories, assessment of the reliability of our transmission and distribution system, or the availability of capital or other resources supporting identified transmission and distribution investment opportunities; the ability to accomplish or realize anticipated benefits from strategic and financial goals, including, but not limited to, our strategy to operate as a fully regulated business and to grow the Regulated Distribution and Regulated Transmission segments to continue to reduce costs through FE Tomorrow, FirstEnergy’s initiative launched in late 2016 to identify its optimal organizational structure and properly align corporate costs and systems to efficiently support a fully regulated company going forward, and other initiatives, and to improve our credit metrics and strengthen our balance sheet; the risks and uncertainties associated with litigation, arbitration, mediation and like proceedings; the uncertainties associated with the sale, transfer or deactivation of our remaining commodity-based generating units, including the impact on vendor commitments, and as it relates to the reliability of the transmission grid, the timing thereof; the uncertainty of the timing and amounts of the capital expenditures that may arise in connection with any litigation, including New Source Review litigation, or potential regulatory initiatives or rulemakings; changes in customers' demand for power, including, but not limited to, changes resulting from the implementation of state and federal energy efficiency and peak demand reduction mandates; economic and weather conditions affecting future sales, margins and operations, such as significant weather events, and all associated regulatory events or actions; changes in national and regional economic conditions affecting FirstEnergy and/or our major industrial and commercial customers, and other counterparties with which we do business; the impact of labor disruptions by our unionized workforce; the risks associated with cyber-attacks and other disruptions to our information technology system that may compromise our generation, transmission and/or distribution services and data security breaches of sensitive data, intellectual property and proprietary or personally identifiable information regarding our business, employees, shareholders, customers, suppliers, business partners and other individuals in our data centers and on our networks; the impact of the regulatory process and resulting outcomes on the matters at the federal level and in the various states in which we do business, including, but not limited to, matters related to rates; the impact of the federal regulatory process on Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) regulated entities and transactions, in particular FERC regulation of PJM Interconnection, L.L.C. (PJM) wholesale energy and capacity markets and cost-of-service rates, as well as FERC’s compliance and enforcement activity, including compliance and enforcement activity related to North American Electric Reliability Corporation’s mandatory reliability standards; the uncertainties of various cost recovery and cost allocation issues resulting from American Transmission Systems, Incorporated's realignment into PJM; the ability to comply with applicable state and federal reliability standards and energy efficiency and peak demand reduction mandates; other legislative and regulatory changes, including the federal administration's required review and potential revision of environmental requirements, including, but not limited to, the effects of the United States Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan, Coal Combustion Residuals, and Cross State Air Pollution Rule programs, including our estimated costs of compliance, Clean Water Act (CWA) waste water effluent limitations for power plants, and CWA 316(b) water intake regulation; changing market conditions that could affect the measurement of certain liabilities and the value of assets held in our pension trusts and other trust funds, and cause us and/or our subsidiaries to make additional contributions sooner, or in amounts that are larger, than currently anticipated; the impact of changes to significant accounting policies; the impact of any changes in tax laws or regulations, including the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, adopted December 22, 2017, or adverse tax audit results or rulings; the ability to access the public securities and other capital and credit markets in accordance with our financial plans, the cost of such capital and overall condition of the capital and credit markets affecting us and our subsidiaries; actions that may be taken by credit rating agencies that could negatively affect us and/or our subsidiaries’ access to financing, increase the costs thereof, letters of credit and other financial guarantees, and the impact of these events on the financial condition and liquidity of FE and/or its subsidiaries; issues concerning the stability of domestic and foreign financial institutions and counterparties with which we do business; and the risks and other factors discussed from time to time in our United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings, and other similar factors. Dividends declared from time to time on FE's common stock, and thereby on FE's preferred stock, during any period may in the aggregate vary from prior periods due to circumstances considered by FE's Board of Directors at the time of the actual declarations. A security rating is not a recommendation to buy or hold securities and is subject to revision or withdrawal at any time by the assigning rating agency. Each rating should be evaluated independently of any other rating. These forward-looking statements are also qualified by, and should be read together with, the risk factors included in our filings with the SEC, including but not limited to the most recent Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q, which risk factors supersede and replace the risk factors contained in the Annual Report on Form 10-K and previous Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, and any subsequent Current Reports on Form 8-K. The foregoing review of factors also should not be construed as exhaustive. New factors emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for management to predict all such factors,

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nor assess the impact of any such factor on our business or the extent to which any factor, or combination of factors, may cause results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements. We expressly disclaim any obligation to update or revise, except as required by law, any forward-looking statements contained herein as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.


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SIGNATURE

Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the Registrant has duly caused this report to be signed on its behalf by the undersigned hereunto duly authorized.

November 21, 2018

 
 FIRSTENERGY CORP.
 
 Registrant
 
 
 
 
 By:
/s/ Jason J. Lisowski
 
Jason J. Lisowski
Vice President, Controller and Chief Accounting Officer


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