Examining how company insiders manage their positions in their own companies can reveal a lot. People may sell shares for many reasons, such as buying a house, paying for college, or estate planning. Generally, they buy shares for just one reason: to make more money.
Often, one of the largest and best-informed shareholders in any company is the chief executive officer. Let’s have a look at whether the CEO of PG&E Corp. (NYSE: PCG), Patricia Poppe, has been increasing or decreasing her shares over the past year and whether she knows something we don’t.
What You Need to Know About PG&E
PG&E, through its subsidiary, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, engages in the sale and delivery of electricity and natural gas to customers in northern and central California. It generates electricity using nuclear, hydroelectric, fossil fuel-fired, fuel cell, and photovoltaic sources. And it serves residential, commercial, industrial, and agricultural customers, as well as natural gas-fired electric generation facilities.
The company owns and operates interconnected transmission lines; electric transmission substations, distribution lines, transmission switching substations, and distribution substations; and natural gas transmission, storage, and distribution systems consisting of distribution pipelines, backbone and local transmission pipelines, and various storage facilities. (This city emits the most carbon dioxide on Earth.)
PG&E was incorporated in 1905 and is based in Oakland, California. That is also home to Clorox Co. (NYSE: CLX) and Kaiser Permanente. Peers of PG&E include American Electric Power Co. Inc. (NASDAQ: AEP), Duke Energy Corp. (NYSE: DUK), Exelon Corp. (NASDAQ: EXC), and Xcel Energy Inc. (NASDAQ: XEL). Poppe has been PG&E’s chief executive since January 2021.
The company posted annual revenue of over $6.1 billion, and its market capitalization is over $42.7 billion. The stock is down about 8% year to date despite recent strong quarterly results with raised guidance. However, the share price is 5% or so higher than a year ago.
How the CEO of PG&E Is Trading
One year ago, Poppe owned almost 2.3 million shares, worth nearly $28.4 million. On last look, that share count was about a million lower to almost 1.3 million, which is a stake of much less than 1%. The value of the stake decreased by about 26% to shy of $21.0 million.
| Shares a Year Ago | Shares Today | % Change |
| 2,270,536 | 1,269,325 | −44.1% |
CEO Patricia Poppe could have sold shares for a variety of reasons, and we may never know why. As mentioned, the company just posted better-than-expected quarterly results and raised its guidance. That has not prompted any insider trading thus far. In fact, insider trading has been quiet for months. The company did drop its dividend from $0.53 to just a penny per share last year. The consensus recommendation of analysts is to buy shares, and their $19.43 mean price target suggests more than 18% upside potential in the next 12 months.
Other shareholders to keep an eye on include Executive Vice President John Simon and Director William Smith. They have stakes worth almost $4.0 million and about $3.5 million, respectively.
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