(Bloomberg) -- Hawaiian Electric Industries Inc. plunged the most in almost a year after issuing a going-concern warning.
The utility owner continues to face fallout from a wildfire last year in Maui that killed dozens of people and destroyed the historic town of Lahaina. The company said late Friday it’s required to disclose a going-concern risk in its financial statements until it can develop a plan to pay for settlement obligations. It pegged losses from estimated accrual of liabilities stemming from the disaster at $1.7 billion.
The shares slumped as much as 22% Monday, the most intraday since August 2023, the month of the fire. The stock was down 16% to $13.03 at 11:35 a.m. in New York.
Hawaiian Electric said earlier this month that it had agreed to pay almost $2 billion as part of a $4 billion settlement to resolve hundreds of lawsuits over the deadly 2023 blazes. Executives said Friday that payments will come in four equal installments, with the first made no earlier than mid-2025.
No official cause of the fire has been determined.
The utility owner is the latest to face massive financial losses due to wildfires blamed on power equipment — though the lights typically stay on for consumers even as companies reorganize or shore up their balance sheets.
PG&E Corp. sought bankruptcy protection in 2019 after its power lines caused devastating blazes in California. Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s PacifiCorp has been saddled with hundreds of millions in liability costs tied to wildfires in Oregon in 2020. The claims have triggered concerns among investors about the financial viability of electric companies operating in high fire risk areas.
The Maui fires damaged or destroyed about 2,200 structures, the majority of them homes, and killed 102 people. The capital cost of the disaster was estimated at $5.5 billion, according to a damage assessment released last year.
(Updates share price in third paragraph.)
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