SDG&E; Shareholders OK Holding-Company Plan

San Diego Gas & Electric shareholders on Friday voted to create a holding company which would subsequently own the utility’s existing shares of stock and pave the way for unregulated diversification beyond the utility’s traditional gas and electric businesses.

The utility must still gain approvals from the California Public Utilities Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Internal Revenue Service.

SDG&E;’s holding-company plan drew support from 74% of voted common stock and more than 70% from two other classes of common and preferred stock. The plan required a majority vote from voted common stock and a two-thirds majority of the outstanding cumulative preferred and preference stock.

A holding company would give SDG&E; “greater financial and organizational flexibility to meet the changing economic environment for utilities,” Chairman and President Thomas Page told utility shareholders Friday.

Page predicted that the PUC would vote on the utility’s proposal by year’s end, although other SDG&E; officials indicated the vote would likely take place during the first quarter of 1986.

SDG&E; officials spent the past week in San Francisco testifying before the PUC. Representatives of San Diego-based Utility Consumers Action Network and the Sacramento-based Independent Energy Producers, which are opposing the utility’s holding-company request, will testify next week.

Page told one shareholder--who identified himself as also being an SDG&E; customer--that the creation of a holding company will not remove SDG&E;’s utility operations from PUC scrutiny. Page said it was “appropriate” that SDG&E;’s gas and electric operations remain under PUC control.