URANIUM IPO MORE COLD THAN FUSION

The world leader in producing and selling uranium feedstock to nuclear power plants didn’t exactly explode onto the scene at the New York Stock Exchange.

USEC Inc.’s 100 million-share initial public offering, the year’s largest, came in toward the low end of the planned price scale, at $14.25. An underwriting syndicate, led by Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co., had hoped to sell 100 million shares at $13.50 to $16.50 apiece.

Then again, the stock was launched on July 23 — a day that saw the Dow Jones industrial average fall 195.93. So maybe it was no small feat that it closed at the same $14.25 price and was the Big Board’s second most active stock, trading 17.3 million shares. Last week it was trading in the $13 range.

USEC, best known as the U.S. Enrichment Corp., deals in uranium enrichment, an important step in changing natural uranium into fuel for nuclear reactors to produce electricity. The Bethesda, Md.-based company has a 75% share of the North American uranium enrichment market and a 40% share of the world market in an industry that is not growing.

USEC started as a government agency, but in 1992 Congress made it a separate entity. In June, the Treasury Department announced plans to privatize the operation.