PG&E's Shares Crater With Each Passing Day
PG&E's Shares Crater With Each Passing Day
(Bloomberg) -- For PG&E Corp. shares, if it’s a day that ends in Y, that almost certainly means it’s a day the stock is falling.
Since Nov. 8, the company has dropped 85 percent, a descent fueled by concerns about its potential $30 billion liability from wildfires in 2018 and 2017. The stock fell as much as 40 percent on Tuesday as a bankruptcy filing looms. The company has posted double-digit intraday declines four days this year -- and there have only been 10 trading days.
The market value, which had reached an all-time high of $35 billion in September 2017, is now almost 1/10 of that amount. At $3.6 billion, it’s become the smallest company (and the year’s worst performer) on the S&P 500 Index.
Furthermore, the shares are trading below where they were 17 years ago, when PG&E last put its utility subsidiary into bankruptcy after the California power crisis and blackouts. The company on Monday gave 15 days’ notice -- following state law -- of its intention to file for bankruptcy.
--With assistance from Liam Denning.
To contact the reporter on this story: Tina Davis in New York at tinadavis@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Reg Gale at rgale5@bloomberg.net, Will Wade
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