ScottishPower expects to report loss

As chief financial officer of ScottishPower, Ian Russell helped orchestrate the UK company's $10.7bn purchase of Pacificorp in 1999 that blazed a trail for European utilities expanding into the US. His work on that acquisition and a plan to reduce costs by $113m this year ' helped by more than 1,000 job losses ' made him natural successor to Ian Robinson, who retired from the UK's largest electric utility in April. Little has gone right for 48-year-old Russell since. A wrong bet on US power prices wiped out more than twice this year's projected savings and ScottishPower is now expected ...