Dear shareholders, friends and fellow employees,

At CenterPoint Energy, we believe in building a company where every person has the opportunity to reach his or her full potential and that is based on our core values of integrity, accountability, initiative and respect. These values provide the foundation for our business practices and reflect the basic ethical principles that guide our conduct every day.

Integrity means that we stay true to our values, that we are trustworthy and honest in our business dealings and that we do what is right, without compromise. Accountability means that we will be responsible for performing our jobs to the highest professional standards and for maintaining CenterPoint Energy’s reputation as a good and ethical corporate citizen. Initiative means we work hard to find better ways to operate, deliver services to our customers and stay "ahead of the curve" in areas of social responsibility, employee satisfaction and corporate governance. Respect means we treat each other, our customers and our other constituents with dignity and the way we want to be treated.

Our Ethics and Compliance Code builds on our core values and provides an overview of some of the laws that govern our activities as well as the basic ethical principles that guide our conduct. While we are required to comply with laws, our Code is more than just a legal "roadmap." Our core values direct us to behave ethically, even when there are no legal constraints. In fact, in some circumstances, we maintain more specific policies on the topics referred to in this Code than is required by law.

By maintaining the highest ethical standards, we ensure that CenterPoint Energy will remain a company that we will all be proud of for years to come.

Sincerely,
David M. McClanahan