For one, its last dividend was paid in September 2017 before concerns about wildfires. Its dividend yield in 2017 was around 3.2%, and its profit was $1.6B. 3.2% isn't getting rich, and people don't buy utilities to get rich, but they expect dividends for their troubles, and the dividend kept up with inflation.
In hindsight, would it have been better to try to prevent wildfires? Yes, but it wasn't clear this was an issue, so in the absence of that, utilities pay out their profits to shareholders.
Its profit margin in 2017 was almost 10% (high than you'd expect for a utility), but if you look at earlier years, its all over the map, and its revenue isn't growing.
I think the point is that dividends are a distribution of profits, and they shouldn't be booking profits at all if they are violating regulations and endangering lives by avoiding maintenance expenses.
> Cal Fire blames PG&E for Butte Fire, will seek $90 million
> A Cal Fire investigation has found Pacific Gas and Electric Co. responsible for the 2015 Butte Fire, one of the most destructive wildfires in state history.
Also found this (July 2016):
> Pacific Gas & Electric Company has signed a multi-million dollar contract...to remove about 160,000 dead trees that were cut down to protect power lines on private property in 10 Central California counties.
There wasn't tons of outrage--op-eds saying this is a disaster waiting to happen--and they probably saw "most destructive wildfires in state history" and $90M and decided it was manageable. They were also probably still focusing on preventing the next San Bruno pipeline explosion and less worried about wildfires. It's too easy to look back with a hindsight bias and say "of course they should have done more."
It's not like 2017 was the first year of CA's drought, or even the first year of CA's wildfires. I get that hindsight is 20/20, but trimming trees around power lines isn't exactly a new or controversial thing that power companies should try to keep up on.
3.2% might not be much, but $50M can pay to trim a good amount of trees around power lines. And where did that other $1.55B of profit go? Obviously not to tree-trimming.
(I'd go further and suggest that something as fundamental and critical as a power company shouldn't even be a profit-seeking corporation.)
This. PG&E has neglected their first job as a regulated monopoly which is to provide safe power. They are years behind on repairs and clean up needed to lower the fire risk.
