Goldman Sachs’ Top Growth Investors: 34 Stocks With The Highest Investment For Growth

12. PG&E Corporation (NYSE:PCG)

Growth Investment Ratio: 136%

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 46

PG&E Corporation (NYSE:PCG) is a California-based utility that serves the energy needs of customers in the state. Since it’s a regulated utility, the firm depends on negotiations with regulators to determine its return on equity. This means that it cannot use self-set rates, but on the flip side, fixed rates also protect PG&E Corporation (NYSE:PCG) against price drops due to low energy demand. PG&E Corporation (NYSE:PCG) is currently seeking to tailor its portfolio toward nuclear generation and raise capital to manage wildfire risks in California. The firm is also tailoring its customer relationship and application process to reduce costs for customers and quickening its regulatory implementation process to deliver quick services. Over the long term, these could create cost savings for PG&E Corporation (NYSE:PCG).

PG&E Corporation (NYSE:PCG)’s management shared details about its new strategy during the Q3 2024 earnings call:

“Last quarter, I shared how one team was reinventing the inspection process, identifying the right work, completing it 50% faster than our previous standard and delivering cost savings, which we look forward to passing along to customers in our next rate case. With the incremental energization capital spend top of mind, I thought I’d share how our service planning and design team is using our performance playbook to rapidly implement regulatory decisions and deliver for our customers. Following the CPUC approval of our initial SB410 energization filing and an incremental $1 billion of funding, the team immediately mobilized. Looking across a number of factors, including customer readiness, permitting agency timelines and materials availability, the team quickly identified over 3,000 incremental customer requests that can be completed this year.

The team is also implementing process improvements that lead to labor and cost savings to our customers. For example, we reimagined the application process, which we estimate will reduce our customer cancellation rate by 70%. And we updated the job package preparation and estimating standards, cutting processing time for electric design work by 40%. These are classic examples of waste and rework that we’re eliminating to the benefit of customers.”