Pacific Gas and Electric said Tuesday it had agreed to sell rights to install wireless communications equipment on 700 transmission towers and other infrastructure for $973 million, plus future licensing revenues on 28,000 other towers and equipment that could bring in millions more per year.
The deal with a wholly owned subsidiary of SBA Communications will help PG&E recover from years of wildfires sparked by its equipment and its ensuing bankruptcy, which ended in June, the utility said in a statement.
“When we emerged from Chapter 11, we made a commitment to achieve financial stability and bolster our overall financial health and we’re delivering on that objective,” PG&E interim CFO Chris Foster said. “Strategically selling non-core assets like these is one way we’re continuing to follow through on that commitment, reduce our financing needs and strengthen our balance sheet.”
California’s largest utility paid fire victims and insurance companies tens of billions of dollars as part of its plan to exit bankruptcy, including giving fire victims a 22% stake in the company. (See PG&E Trying to Move Forward from Bankruptcy.)
The utility said the deal will help ratepayers and fire victims.
“PG&E estimates that approximately half of the net sale proceeds will be returned to electric transmission and distribution customers in the form of lower monthly bills,” it said. “Furthermore, the net transaction proceeds are expected to help partially offset future equity issuances and dilution of PG&E shares, a substantial portion of which are held by the fire victim trust established to compensate victims of 2015, 2017 and 2018 fires.”
The license agreement with SBA will be for 100 years, though PG&E will retain the right to terminate it for individual cell sites for regulatory or operational reasons, the company said. It also allows SBA to enter sublicensing agreements with wireless providers that attach equipment to transmission towers and other utility structures, giving PG&E a portion of those future revenues, the utility said.
“SBA will have the exclusive rights to sublicense and market potential additional attachment locations on approximately 28,000 of the utility’s other electric transmission towers to carriers for attachment of wireless communications equipment,” with licensing fees split between PG&E and SBA, the utility told the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in a filing Tuesday.
“PG&E is not selling any transmission towers as part of this transaction,” it said in its statement.
FERC and the California Public Utilities Commission have both approved the installation of wireless antennas on transmission towers as a secondary use, PG&E said.
SBA CEO Jeff Stoops said that with 5G networks expanding, the “transaction adds a significant portfolio of high-quality, exclusive locations to our outstanding existing U.S. macro tower portfolio, and SBA expects these assets to generate approximately $39.5 million in tower cash flow in their first full year in our portfolio.”
“We are also particularly pleased about the opportunity to work closely with PG&E over the coming years to maximize wireless deployments across their extensive network of transmission towers.”