A key document PG&E filed with state regulators shows its plan to resolve the case and pay victims of fires its power lines caused comes with a price tag of $57.65 billion, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. The exit plan would be funded partly by PG&E raising more than $44 billion in new financing. State law requires PG&E to resolve its bankruptcy without raising rates. Most of the financing, about $28.5 billion, would come through new debt held at the company and subsidiary Pacific Gas and Electric Co. “This ... will be the largest capital raise in the utility industry and one of the largest in corporate history,” said Jason Wells, chief financial officer of PG&E Corp., when he was questioned on Feb. 28 at a public hearing before the California Public Utilities Commission. The comments from Wells were among many insights revealed when PG&E executives and others spent seven business days, from Feb. 25 through Wednesday, answering questions at the utilities commission’s office in San Francisco. The hearings were an essential step related to PG&E’s bankruptcy, because state regulators must sign off on the company’s plan to resolve the case. The bankruptcy exit plan would, if finalized, fund more than $25 billion in settlements related to fires blamed on PG&E, including the 2017 Wine Country wildfires and the 2018 Camp Fire in Butte County.
