HOUSTON, April 6, 2005 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX/ -- CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE: CNP) announced today that the approval required from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for CenterPoint Energy to sell its interest in Texas Genco Holdings, Inc. to Texas Genco LLC, formerly known as GC Power Acquisition LLC, has been obtained. As a result of the approval, the company expects to complete the sale of Texas Genco Holdings, Inc. next week. Cash proceeds to CenterPoint Energy from this step will be $700 million, which the company will use primarily to pay down debt.

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The sale will complete the final step of a two-part transaction announced last July in which Texas Genco LLC would acquire CenterPoint Energy's wholesale electric power generation company. The first step of the transaction, the sale of the company's fossil generation assets (coal, lignite and gas-fired plants) for $2.231 billion in proceeds to CenterPoint Energy, was completed in December 2004. Once the final step of the sale is completed, CenterPoint Energy will have received about $2.9 billion in total cash proceeds for its interest in Texas Genco Holdings, Inc.

CenterPoint Energy, Inc., headquartered in Houston, Texas, is a domestic energy delivery company that includes electric transmission & distribution, natural gas distribution and sales, interstate pipeline and gathering operations and an electric generation business that the company is under a contract to sell. The company serves nearly five million metered customers primarily in Arkansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Texas. Assets total about $18 billion. With more than 9,000 employees, CenterPoint Energy and its predecessor companies have been in business for more than 130 years. For more information, visit the Web site at http://www.CenterPointEnergy.com .

This news release includes forward-looking statements. Actual events and results may differ materially from those projected. The statements in this news release regarding future financial performance and results of operations and other statements that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements. Factors that could affect actual results include the timing and impact of future regulatory and legislative decisions, effects of competition, weather variations, changes in CenterPoint Energy's or its subsidiaries' business plans, financial market conditions, the timing and extent of changes in commodity prices, particularly natural gas, the impact of unplanned facility outages and other factors discussed in CenterPoint Energy's and its subsidiaries' filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

SOURCE CenterPoint Energy, Inc.

media, Leticia Lowe, +1-713-207-7702, or investors, Marianne Paulsen,
+1-713-207-6500, both of CenterPoint Energy, Inc.

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