MARK WHITTETUK-focused electricity generator Innogy sagged yesterday during its first day on the stock market while its overseas-looking sister company International Power forged ahead. Both companies were created from the demerger of National Power.

But the sum of the two parts - their combined share price - was still 477p, which was better than National Power's final closing price of 470p last Friday.

International Power - comprising some 6300 megawatts of power station generating capacity, mostly overseas - opened at 295p, but closed up 16.75p at 311.75p. Earlier in the day, the price reached a high of 322p.

In contrast, Innogy - the vertically-integrated English electricity power and gas supply business - dropped right from the start, losing 9.75p from the 175p opening price to finish at 165.25p.

Utilities analyst Andrew Fisher at Greig Middleton in London said: ''International Power is

clearly going for expansion in overseas developing markets, while Innogy is operating a

regulated business in the UK, with the prospect of new electricity trading arrangements currently over-hanging the market.

''Innogy is a classic steady and unspectacular utility stock, with the only brighter spark on the horizon being its Regenesys electricity storage technology, which would ultimately allow it to feed in product to the market at times of peak demand and high prices.''

Another Edinburgh-based

utilities analyst noted: ''There's upside potential in both companies. Even allowing for further falls in UK wholesale electricity prices, Innogy has the retail

supply side of the business to

balance its generating operations and we should see reasonable

dividend growth.

''As for International Power, it has strong growth potential, with a US Energy Information Agency forecast of a doubling of electricity generating capacity by 2020, which is quite exciting''.

International Power is building seven new power stations in North America with a capacity of 10,850 megawatts of electricity. In particular, it is targetting California, which suffered electricity price spikes in the summer as a heatwave forced people to turn up the air conditioning, putting a massive strain on generating capacity. No power stations have been built in California for more than 10 years.

In England, Innogy's NPower retail division has about three million customers and operates a mixture of seven oil, coal and gas-generating stations.

International Power is retaining any profits this year to re-invest in its overseas expansion programme and will not pay any dividend.

Innogy has already pledged a dividend of 7.5p at the end of this financial year, representing a yield of 4.4%. National Power's last dividend was 15p a share.