Struggling Puerto Rico Utility Seeks Commonwealth Funds (1)

Puerto Rico’s struggling power utility may need help from the commonwealth’s government to repay legacy debt if it’s to deal with chronic outages and resolve its seven-year bankruptcy saga.

The island’s financial oversight board, which is managing the legal workout of Puerto Rico’s Electric Power Authority, plans to open discussions with government lawmakers about using commonwealth funds to repay the utility’s creditors, the board’s executive director, Robert Mujica, told reporters Tuesday.

The board in the past has said that the utility, known as Prepa, can only take on $2.6 billion of new debt to restructure the $10 billion it ...