PG&E weighs bankruptcy

Bloomberg

PG&E Corp is considering filing for bankruptcy protection within weeks as a way of organising billions of dollars in potential liabilities tied to deadly wildfires that ravaged parts of California in 2017 and 2018, according to people familiar with the situation.
The California utility giant may decide to file by February, said the people, asking not to be identified because the information isn’t public. A bankruptcy filing isn’t certain and is one of a number of steps being considered, they said.
PG&E said in a statement that it’s “working diligently to assess the company’s potential liabilities as a result of the wildfires and the options for addressing those liabilities.” Reuters reported earlier that it was considering bankruptcy. The stock slid as much as 32 percent in after-hours trading.
The San Francisco-based company has lost more than half its market value since the so-called Camp Fire, the deadliest in California history, broke out in early November. It could face billions of dollars in liabilities if its power lines are found to be responsible for that blaze, in addition to ones that devastated Northern California’s wine country in 2017.
PG&E’s woes have underscored how vulnerable utilities are to natural disasters, especially in California, where they can be held liable for damages even if they aren’t found to be negligent. State regulators have already begun a formal process to evaluate whether to break up or take over its Pacific Gas and Electric utility.
Earlier, PG&E said in a statement that it’s considering changes to both its board and how its businesses are structured. It may weigh the sale of its natural gas business after a bankruptcy filing, the people familiar with the matter said.