SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
PG&E Corporation (NYSE: PCG) has announced that, subject to the closing
of the previously announced sale of 4,900,000 shares of its common stock
through a registered public offering underwritten by Morgan Stanley and
BofA Merrill Lynch, it has completed its currently planned market
issuances of equity for year 2016. The proceeds from the offering when
combined with the anticipated equity raised through its internal equity
programs, which include its 401(k) and dividend reinvestment program,
are expected to satisfy the company’s expected equity needs for 2016.
This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the
solicitation of an offer to buy these securities, nor shall there be any
sale of these securities, in any jurisdiction in which such offer,
solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or
qualification under the securities laws of any such jurisdiction.
PG&E Corporation
PG&E Corporation (NYSE:PCG) is a Fortune 200 energy-based holding
company, headquartered in San Francisco. It is the parent company of
Pacific Gas and Electric Company (“Utility”), California’s largest
investor-owned utility. PG&E serves about 16 million Californians across
a 70,000 square-mile service area in Northern and Central California.
This press release contains forward-looking statements of future
expectations, including the expected equity needs for 2016 and the
ability to satisfy those needs through proceeds from this offering and
PG&E Corporation's internal equity programs. Actual results and equity
requirements may differ materially from those anticipated. Factors that
could cause actual results and equity requirements to differ materially
include:
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the timing and outcomes of the final phase two California Public
Utilities Commission (“CPUC”) decision in the 2015 gas transmission
and storage rate case, the transmission owner rate cases, and other
ratemaking and regulatory proceedings and whether the CPUC approves
the settlement agreement relating to the 2017 General Rate Case and
its resolution of the remaining issues in the proceeding;
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the timing and outcomes of the CPUC decision in the Utility’s natural
gas distribution record-keeping practices investigation, the CPUC
Safety and Enforcement Division’s unresolved enforcement matters
relating to the Utility’s compliance with natural gas-related laws and
regulations, and the other investigations that have been or may be
commenced relating to the Utility’s compliance with natural
gas-related laws and regulations, and the ultimate amount of fines,
penalties, and remedial costs that the Utility may incur in connection
with the outcomes;
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the timing and outcomes of the CPUC’s investigation of communications
between the Utility and the CPUC that may have violated the CPUC’s
rules regarding ex parte communications or are otherwise alleged to be
improper, and of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Francisco and the
California Attorney General’s office investigations in connection with
communications between the Utility’s personnel and CPUC officials,
whether additional criminal or regulatory investigations or
enforcement actions are commenced with respect to allegedly improper
communications, and the extent to which such matters negatively affect
the final decisions to be issued in the Utility’s ratemaking
proceedings;
-
the timing and outcomes of the sentencing phase of the federal
criminal prosecution of the Utility and any post-trial motions;
whether the jury’s verdict in the federal criminal prosecution of the
Utility could harm its relationships with regulators, legislators,
communities, business partners, or other constituencies and make it
more difficult to recruit qualified personnel and senior management;
whether the verdict could negatively affect the outcome of future
ratemaking and regulatory proceedings, for example, by enabling
parties to argue that the Utility should not be allowed to recover
costs that the parties allege are somehow related to the criminal
charges on which the Utility was found guilty or to seek any
additional fines, remedies or disallowances; and whether the jury
verdict could result in increased regulatory or legislative scrutiny
with respect to various aspects of how the Utility’s business is
conducted or organized;
-
the outcome of the Butte fire litigation, and whether the Utility’s
insurance is sufficient to cover the Utility’s liability resulting
therefrom or if insurance is otherwise available; and whether
additional investigations and proceedings will be opened;
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whether we and the Utility are able to repair the harm to our
reputations caused by the jury verdict in the federal criminal
prosecution of the Utility, the state and federal investigations of
natural gas incidents, matters relating to the indicted case, improper
communications between the CPUC and the Utility; and the Utility’s
ongoing work to remove encroachments from transmission pipeline
rights-of-way;
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whether the Utility can control its costs within the authorized levels
of spending, the extent to which the Utility incurs unrecoverable
costs that are higher than the forecasts of such costs, and changes in
cost forecasts or the scope and timing of planned work resulting from
changes in customer demand for electricity and natural gas or other
reasons;
-
the amount and timing of additional common stock and debt issuances by
us, including the dilutive impact of common stock issuances to fund
our equity contributions to the Utility as the Utility incurs charges
and costs, including fines, that it cannot recover through rates;
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the outcome of the CPUC’s investigation into the Utility’s safety
culture, and future legislative or regulatory actions that may be
taken to require the Utility to separate its electric and natural gas
businesses, restructure into separate entities, undertake some other
corporate restructuring, or implement corporate governance changes;
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the outcomes of future investigations or other enforcement proceedings
that may be commenced relating to the Utility’s compliance with laws,
rules, regulations, or orders applicable to its operations, including
the construction, expansion or replacement of its electric and gas
facilities; inspection and maintenance practices, customer billing and
privacy, and physical and cyber security
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the impact of environmental remediation laws, regulations, and orders;
the ultimate amount of costs incurred to discharge the Utility’s known
and unknown remediation obligations; and the extent to which the
Utility is able to recover environmental costs in rates or from other
sources;
-
the ultimate amount of unrecoverable environmental costs the Utility
incurs associated with the Utility’s natural gas compressor station
site located near Hinkley, California;
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the impact of new legislation or Nuclear Regulatory Commission (“NRC”)
regulations, recommendations, policies, decisions, or orders relating
to the nuclear industry, including operations, seismic design,
security, safety, relicensing, the storage of spent nuclear fuel,
decommissioning, cooling water intake, or other issues; the impact of
actions taken by state agencies, that may affect the Utility’s ability
to continue operating Diablo Canyon; whether the CPUC approves the
joint proposal that will phase out the Utility’s Diablo Canyon nuclear
units at the expiration of their licenses in 2024 and 2025; whether
the Utility obtains the approvals required to withdraw its NRC
application to renew the two Diablo Canyon operating licenses; and
whether the Utility will be able to successfully implement its
retention and retraining and development programs for Diablo Canyon
employees, and whether these programs will be recovered in rates;
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whether the Utility’s information technology, operating systems and
networks, including the advanced metering system infrastructure,
customer billing, financial, records management, and other systems,
can continue to function accurately while meeting regulatory
requirements; whether the Utility and its third party vendors and
contractors (who host, maintain, modify and update some of the
Utility’s systems) are able to protect the Utility’s operating systems
and networks from damage, disruption, or failure caused by
cyber-attacks, computer viruses, or other hazards; whether the
Utility’s security measures are sufficient to protect against
unauthorized or inadvertent disclosure of information contained in
such systems and networks, including confidential proprietary
information and the personal information of customers; and whether the
Utility can continue to rely on third-party vendors and contractors
that maintain and support some of the Utility’s information technology
and operating systems;
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the impact of droughts or other weather-related conditions or events,
wildfires (such as the Butte fire), climate change, natural disasters,
acts of terrorism, war, or vandalism (including cyber-attacks), and
other events, that can cause unplanned outages, reduce generating
output, disrupt the Utility’s service to customers, or damage or
disrupt the facilities, operations, or information technology and
systems owned by the Utility, its customers, or third parties on which
the Utility relies; whether the Utility incurs liability to third
parties for property damage or personal injury caused by such events;
and whether the Utility is subject to civil, criminal, or regulatory
penalties in connection with such events; and whether the Utility’s
insurance coverage is available for these types of claims and whether
the amount of insurance is sufficient to cover the Utility’s liability;
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how the CPUC and the California Air Resources Board implement state
environmental laws relating to greenhouse gas, renewable energy
targets, energy efficiency standards, distributed energy resources,
electric vehicles, and similar matters, including whether the Utility
is able to continue recovering associated compliance costs, such as
the cost of emission allowances and offsets under cap-and-trade
regulations, and whether the Utility is able to timely recover its
associated investment costs;
-
whether the Utility’s climate change adaptation strategies are
successful;
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the impact that reductions in customer demand for electricity and
natural gas have on the Utility’s ability to make and recover its
investments through rates and earn its authorized return on equity,
and whether the Utility is successful in addressing the impact of
growing distributed and renewable generation resources and changing
customer demand for natural gas and electric services;
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the supply and price of electricity, natural gas, and nuclear fuel;
the extent to which the Utility can manage and respond to the
volatility of energy commodity prices; the ability of the Utility and
its counterparties to post or return collateral in connection with
price risk management activities; and whether the Utility is able to
recover timely its electric generation and energy commodity costs
through rates, including its renewable energy procurement costs;
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the amount and timing of charges reflecting probable liabilities for
third-party claims; the extent to which costs incurred in connection
with third-party claims or litigation can be recovered through
insurance, rates, or from other third parties; and whether the Utility
can continue to obtain adequate insurance coverage for future losses
or claims, especially following a major event that causes widespread
third-party losses;
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our and the Utility’s ability to access capital markets and other
sources of debt and equity financing in a timely manner on acceptable
terms;
-
changes in credit ratings which could result in increased borrowing
costs especially if we or the Utility were to lose our or its
investment grade credit ratings;
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the impact of federal or state laws or regulations, or their
interpretation, on energy policy and the regulation of utilities and
their holding companies, including how the CPUC interprets and
enforces the financial and other conditions imposed on us when we
became the Utility’s holding company, and whether the ultimate
outcomes of the CPUC’s pending investigations, the criminal
prosecution, and other enforcement matters affect the Utility’s
ability to make distributions to us, and, in turn, our ability to pay
dividends;
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the outcome of federal or state tax audits and the impact of any
changes in federal or state tax laws, policies, regulations, or their
interpretation; and
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the impact of changes in U.S. generally accepted accounting
principles, standards, rules, or policies, including those related to
regulatory accounting, and the impact of changes in their
interpretation or application.
See “Risk Factors” and “Forward-Looking Statements” in PG&E
Corporation’s prospectus and the related prospectus supplement, and
similarly titled sections in PG&E Corporation’s Annual Report on Form
10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2015, Quarterly Reports on
Form 10-Q for the quarters ended March 31, 2016 and June 30, 2016, and
other reports that may be filed with the Securities and Exchange
Commission.
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Source: PG&E Corporation