Liam Denning, Columnist

The PG&E Rescue Plan Is All About Timing

There's one big reason to get the utility out of bankruptcy quickly.

April 1, 2019 at 1:23 PM UTC

Liam Denning is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering energy. A former banker, he edited the Wall Street Journal’s Heard on the Street column and wrote the Financial Times’s Lex column.

In a hole and in a hurry.
Photographer: Bloomberg/Bloomberg

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PG&E Corp.’s bleak first quarter drew to a close on a bleak note. California Governor Gavin Newsom isn’t a fan of the bankrupt utility’s new board picks and went to the trouble of sending it a letter saying so. Hedge funds proposing alternatives promptly piled on. Getting out of chapter 11 vaguely intact looks like a distant dream.

Or does it? My colleagues Mark Chediak and Scott Deveau at Bloomberg News recently delivered the scoop that Pacific Investment Management Co., Elliott Management Corp. and Davidson Kempner Capital Management have outlined a plan for PG&E to re-emerge by this time next year, at least a year faster than expected.