SIOUX FALLS, S.D. - NorthWestern Corp. released its year-end earnings figures Monday, but executives say putting 2003 and 2004 figures side-by-side is like comparing apples to oranges.

When NorthWestern emerged from bankruptcy on Nov. 1, the reorganized energy company had to revalue its assets and liabilities as if they were assumed on that date, said Gary Drook, the company's chief executive officer.

The requirement, known as fresh-start reporting, resulted in NorthWestern reporting $544.4 million in consolidated earnings on common stock for 2004, compared to a loss of $129 million in 2003.

"But much of this earnings improvement stems from the reorganization item, that was a result of fresh-start reporting," Drook said in a conference call Monday.

Drook said bankruptcy protection allowed the company to get rid of its noncore businesses, renegotiate energy supply contracts and vendor agreements and significantly reduce its debt.

NorthWestern plans to continue reducing its debt in 2005, he said.

"We emerged from bankruptcy as a solid company, with a strong balance sheet and a reliable cash flow," Drook said.

NorthWestern reported revenues of $1.039 billion in 2004, up 2.6 percent over the 2003 figure of $1.013 billion.

The company also announced a 22-cents-per-share quarterly cash dividend on its common stock, to be paid March 31.

NorthWestern, based in Sioux Falls, was $2.2 billion in debt with its stock trading below $1 when it filed for Chapter 11 protection in September 2003 after months of struggling to gets its finances back on track.

The utility emerged from bankruptcy after shedding more than 60 percent of that debt. It issued 35.5 million new common stock shares as a debt-for-equity swap to creditors, rendering useless the previous shares that had been trading as over-the-counter pink slips.

Its new stock, listed as NWEC on the NASDAQ, closed down 30 cents at $27.86 on Monday.

In the mid-1990s, NorthWestern officials moved to diversify the longtime regional utility by entering into several subsidiary businesses, including Blue Dot, a heating, air conditioning and ventilating business, and Expanets, a telecommunications company.

But the costs of the aggressive national expansion, coupled with lower-than-expected financial returns, contributed to the company's rising debt.

NorthWestern has since sold all but one of its 65 Blue Dot locations, and sold Expanets' assets to Avaya Inc.

Expanets, renamed Netexit, filed for bankruptcy protection in May.

NorthWestern Corp. has 608,000 utility customers in Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska. In Montana, NorthWestern Energy provides electricity to more than 300,000 customers and natural gas to about 157,000 customers.

On the Net:

NorthWestern Corp.: http://www.northwestern.com/