PG&E Corporation is the parent of Pacific Gas and Electric Company, the regulated electric and gas utility that serves most of Northern and Central California. The equity is no longer a simple rate-base compounder. Sacramento adjourned without the wildfire-liability shield that the five-year capital plan assumed, and management answered by cutting next year's spend and opening a board-level strategic review. The operating machine still prints higher core earnings. The multiple now prices the policy failure, not the quarter.
Second-quarter core earnings rose to $0.40 a share. First-half core earnings reached $0.83. Those prints still sit inside full-year guidance of $1.64 to $1.66. The problem for owners is not the income statement this quarter. Inverse condemnation still assigns open-ended fire damages to the utility, the statewide Wildfire Fund is being drawn by other operators, and the Assembly declined to take up Senate Bill 492 after lawmakers stripped the insurance-subrogation limit that Oakland and Rosemead had demanded.
Shares now trade near $13 after an August close near $18. That is roughly eight times next year's core earnings and a discount to book. Management still affirms 2026 guidance. The board has also started 2027 guidance. The midpoint sits near $1.80. The question is whether Sacramento rebuilds a durable liability frame before the next ignition, or whether the strategic review shrinks the rate-base machine that the old multiple was paying for.