PG&E investors may not get California’s help soon

Bloomberg

As prices of stocks and bonds issued by PG&E Corp touch record lows, investors probably won’t get any certainty soon from the incoming California governor on how he would deal with the utility’s liabilities from the fatal fires ravaging the state.
In a brief news conference with Governor Jerry Brown, Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom, who will succeed him in January, noted that people are concerned about the potential bankruptcy of the state’s largest utility, which reported that its equipment was damaged near where the deadliest fire began. But Newsom didn’t say what he would do to address the concerns sparked by PG&E and other utilities facing billion-dollar liabilities.
“We’re going to assess all those facts — the governor is in the process of doing the same — and we’ll see where we are when the baton is handed,” Newsom said outside the governor’s office in Sacramento.
In California, utilities can be held liable for any economic damages tied to their equipment, even if they follow all of the state’s safety rules.
Officials are currently grappling with the state’s deadliest blaze, known as the Camp Fire, that has left at least 42 people dead about 150 miles (240 kilometers) northeast of San Francisco, as well as with confl- agrations in Southern California that have killed two.
The devastation comes a year after wildfires swept Northern California, exposing PG&E to about $15 billion of liabilities, and the latest blazes may be just as costly to the utility, said Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Kit Konolige. The legislation enacted in September to address the prior fire has no provision for those this year.