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PGW Sale Could Net City $496 Million

Yesterday, Lazard released their 48-page study into whether the sale of PGW would be a viable option for the City of Philadelphia. Mayor Nutter looked at what Lazar found and promptly slapped a “For Sale” sign right on PGW, but what could the sale make for the city?

According to Bloomberg, Lazard valued PGW at from, “$1.4 billion to more than $2 billion,” with the eventual sale netting the City of Philadelphia as much as $496 million. Of course the sale would be a long, drawn out, tedious process, but at least the city has seen recent examples of how not to do it.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 14th, 2012 at 9:30 am.

  • tsarstruck

    Anybody know how rates are set in private monopolies like this would be? This is obviously a lot different than deregulating PECO, where we have multiple choices of providers.

  • Zombie Larry

    Here is the deal… the politicians get a half a billion dollar windfall and the consumer sees his gas bill skyrocket.

    Representative government my ass.

  • arcticsplasher

    Selling off public-owend, revenue-producing assets is the height of dumb 2000s thinking – the very definition of pennywise and pound foolish. Chicago is the poster child for this – sold their parking meters off for millions less than they were worth, and watched the rates quadruple in the following year.

  • tsarstruck

    Except that PGW doesn’t always revenue-producing. It’s cost the city money in years past.

    But agreed, @arcticsplasher, that Chicago’s selling off it’s parking meters is idiotic.

  • chuck63

    I’m with ZL on this one…the fine folks at city hall would get a half billion dollars and absolutely nothing would change except the size of your gas bill

  • http://gtownradio.com gtownradioboy

    Doesn’t the PUC have to okay any rate hikes? You can’t just charge whatever you want for gas. Can you?

    On a side note, PECO has a far more superior customer service apparatus compared to PGW in my experience.

  • http://markskull.blogspot.com/ Larry

    Wow, a whole half Billion?!

    So when they get the cash and we’re still wondering why violence is up, unemployment is still high, our infrastructure crumbling, and then our gas rates going up… will anyone be shocked?

    Sell off city assets is just is just asking for trouble down the road. What happens when the revenue we COULD have gotten from PGW leaves? Right now they’re a billion in the whole because the people in charge are too fucking corrupt and stupid to take care of things.

    Change the system, not the owners.

  • amarikah

    PGW currently has $1.5 billion in liabilities with $1 billion in debt. THAT’S the PGW “turnaround” Tom Knudsen did such an awesome job with that we just gave him the school district to run? Okay then.