Clearway Energy's Dividend Hike Is Near As PG&E's June 30 Deadline Approaches

Clearway Energy has still not overcome the damage dealt to the stock by the PG&E bankruptcy.
PG&E is fully on track to resolve its Chapter 11 status by June 30.
This clears the way for Clearway to reinstate its old dividend of $0.33, which would take the A-share yield to 6.3%.
Clearway's Q1 update is also not a showstopper for a dividend hike.
Clearway Energy (CWEN) (CWEN.A) got beaten up badly last year after the PG&E (PCG) bankruptcy and a dividend cut. It was an especially troublesome event as some believed PG&E would renegotiate the deals it made with renewable energy producers like Clearway and this would severely hurt Clearway's business and could potentially bankrupt some of its projects.
Early on, I argued that these fears were overblown because PG&E’s regulator as well as Californian politicians had a lot at stake. Another thing that I found is that the other potentially impacted YieldCos, Atlantica Yield (AY) and NextEra Energy Partners (NEP), had exposures not too dissimilar from Clearway’s.
Yet, Clearway Energy’s stock was hit much harder by events than that of its peers, as can be observed from the chart below. Note that the wildfires occurred in late 2018, PG&E filed for chapter 11 in January 2019 and that Clearway cut its dividend in February 2019.

Source: Seeking Alpha/TradingView
Though Clearway has performed quite well since its 2019 bottom, it is still not performing as well as it should – in my view – since its level of late 2018. Atlantica Yield, though not back at its YTD peak, has appreciated substantially more during this period with a higher dividend level as well. NEP is also included in the chart above because it is impacted by the PG&E situation (though less than AY and CWEN) but its troubles are more structural and its underperformance is justified by its leverage and potential for added dilution if its stock price declines, as I outlined in this article.
The core... Read more