Hawaiian Electric Industries CEO Connie Lau said in an email made public Tuesday that NextEra Energy Inc. considers the Hawaii utility a “snack” on its way to buying other regulated utilities.

After a dinner with Moray Dewhurst, vice chairman and chief financial officer at NextEra, Lau sent an email to HEI’s general counsel Chet Richardson on Nov. 24, 2014, a little over a week before NextEra announced its plan to buy HEI for $4.3 billion.

Lau copied Alan Oshima, president and CEO of Hawaiian Electric Co., on the email and noted that Oshima had previously called the deal a snack for NextEra.

“Moray Dewhurst joined us for dinner and made it clear that we are the snack (as Alan calls it) on the way to their desired buffet luncheon to acquire other regulated utilities,” Lau said in the email.

The email was made public Tuesday after Randy Iwase, chairman of the state Public Utilities Commission, ordered HEI and NextEra to release dozens of documents that had previously been marked confidential. The documents are part of the voluminous filings the two companies have presented in response to questions regarding the proposed sale of HEI. The PUC is holding hearings into the sale, and the commission’s approval is necessary for the sale to close.

NextEra spokesman Rob Gould said the company disagreed with Lau’s statement.

“We take issue with such a characterization,” Gould said. “Mr. Dewhurst did not use those words to describe our potential partnership.”

NextEra refers to the deal as a merger and has said HEI would become a third principal subsidiary of NextEra. NextEra Energy’s current principal subsidiaries include Florida Power & Light Co., a regulated electric utility; and NextEra Energy Resources LLC, which builds utility-scale renewable energy projects across the country.

NextEra’s market capitalization, or the price of its stock times the number of shares outstanding, is $45 billion. HEI’s market cap is $3 billion.

Opponents of the sale pounced on the email as evidence of the low priority NextEra attaches to HEI.

“The quote speaks for itself, and it’s terrifying that Hawaii really is viewed by these CEOs as an expendable commodity to be traded for a profit,” said state Rep. Chris Lee (D, Kailua-Waimanalo).

“We want a company that treats Hawaii as its main focus and not a company that eats us like a snack,” said Isaac Moriwake, an attorney representing Sierra Club Hawaii.

“The public has a right to know NextEra’s true intentions, especially given the importance of this proceeding for Hawaii,” said Kylie Wager, also an attorney representing Sierra Club Hawaii. “NextEra’s strategy is to continue acquiring utilities and consolidating the utility industry. The proposed takeover of the HECO companies is just the beginning and a small part of NextEra’s plan.”

NextEra has filed 60,000 pages of documents, and roughly 5 percent, or 3,000 pages, were marked as confidential by the company.

Coincidentally, Dewhurst, the NextEra CFO who dined with Lau, testified at the PUC hearing Tuesday. He said NextEra is not making any promises to HECO retirees regarding health coverage — a concern brought up by Iwase at an earlier hearing.

On Dec. 10, Iwase questioned why NextEra had not made a written commitment to maintain benefits for HEI retirees. In response to Iwase’s comments, NextEra said the reason the company didn’t include retiree benefits is because it always planned to maintain existing benefits offered by HECO.

Dewhurst said that virtually every company he is familiar with over the last several years has made changes, asking retirees to contribute more to the cost of their health coverage.

“That is not something we would rule out,” Dewhurst said.

Today is the last day of the scheduled PUC hearings at the Neal S. Blaisdell Center. Iwase has said the hearings will be extended into January and through February. He has not chosen a venue for the hearings in January, but has secured the Blaisdell again starting Feb. 1.

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