New leadership at Peoples Gas vows company will remain unchanged

Peoples Gas will essentially remain unchanged under the new ownership of an eastern Pennsylvania water and sewer company, the head of water company said Friday.

The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission on Thursday approved the sale of Peoples to Bryn Mawr-based Aqua America Inc. for $4.3 billion.

Christopher Franklin, Aqua’s chairman and CEO, said the new water and gas company — christened Essential — would run as separate entities under his leadership. Peoples will maintain its North Shore headquarters under the same name and with the same employees running the gas operation.

Only its top leadership is changing.

Morgan O’Brien, who has headed Peoples for 10 years, is stepping down. Joe Gregorini, Peoples’ current chief operating officer, will assume the role of president.

“Morgan and his team have done a terrific job in bringing a number of different gas utilities together, not only integrating them, but making a very, very strong corporate presence here in Pittsburgh as well as in Kentucky and West Virginia,” Franklin said. “I have nothing but compliments for Morgan O’Brien.”

O’Brien, who lives in Downtown Pittsburgh, said he hasn’t had time to chart out his future, but he plans to remain in Pittsburgh.

“I’m leaving after 10 years, much, much longer than the average CEO gets,” he said. “I feel really good about who we are and I feel good about the people who are coming in here. I really don’t have any specific plans yet, but I’m going to be doing something.”

Gregorini, 60, of North Strabane, has worked for Peoples for 33 years.

“Joe is going to be the top guy in Pittsburgh and with gas operations, so the buck stops there,” Franklin said.

He said Aqua targeted Peoples because it wanted to grow and the two companies have a similar function in delivering an underground commodity to customers in Pennsylvania.

Some have criticized the sale, saying Aqua has no natural gas experience. Franklin noted that Peoples is currently owned by a private equity firm — SteelRiver Infrastructure Fund. O’Brien, he said, had no gas experience when he left as president and CEO of Duquesne Light to take the job at Peoples.

“I’m not buying a company and then bringing all my team in here to run a utility,” Franklin said. “These are seasoned professionals who’ve been doing this in some cases 30 some years. I think it’s a little bit shortsighted to say you can’t put two utilities together.”

O’Brien in 2018 announced a plan to develop a public-private partnership with the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority, triggering concerns that Pittsburgh would privatize the public authority. Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto has been adamant about maintaining PWSA as a publicly owned system, but said the city would seek suggestions from private enterprise on a partnership that would generate additional revenue for the beleaguered authority.

Franklin said Essential would be more than willing to help, but only if asked.

“We think that there are probably some operational and capital-related changes you could make to improve the process in the plants, but I don’t want to second-guess an engineering and really good team over there,” he said of PWSA. “I think we could be helpful, but only if invited.”