(Bloomberg) — After a drawn-out saga involving a restructuring and a administration shakeup, one of many most-prominent names in US photo voltaic, SunPower Corp., has now filed for chapter.
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Over the course of lower than two years, the once-darling of the business was pressured to fireside employees to chop prices, restate earnings and it defaulted on a credit score settlement. In 2024, the agency changed its chief govt officer, restructured its operations and misplaced its accountant.
Business headwinds added to the woes: Excessive rates of interest and subsidy adjustments in California — the US sector’s greatest market — have been a drag for photo voltaic corporations that anticipated large development from President Joe Biden’s signature local weather regulation of 2022.
SunPower mentioned in court docket papers that it’s carrying about $2 billion in long-term debt and it’s been struggling since October to keep away from potential defaults underneath numerous financing preparations. Prime shareholders within the agency embody France’s TotalEnergies SE.
On Tuesday, the shares plunged by 34% to 53 cents as of 10:01 a.m. in New York.
“SunPower’s travails are emphatically a company-specific subject and shouldn’t be seen as a touch upon the underlying demand for US residential photo voltaic,” Pavel Molchanov, an analyst with Raymond James, mentioned by electronic mail. “It has been a troublesome six months for SunPower.”
The rooftop photo voltaic firm agreed to promote belongings together with its Blue Raven Photo voltaic set up unit and new houses companies to Full Solaria Inc. as a stalking horse purchaser for $45 million, in accordance with an announcement late Monday. It requested the court docket to approve the deal by the top of September.
“SunPower has confronted a extreme liquidity disaster attributable to a pointy decline in demand within the photo voltaic market and SunPower’s lack of ability to acquire new capital,” Matthew Henry, the corporate’s chief transformation officer, wrote in a chapter submitting.
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SunPower, based in 1985, lengthy had a popularity for producing among the greatest photo voltaic panels within the business, however it spun off its manufacturing operations in 2020 to give attention to then-surging demand for rooftop installations. That wager quickly unraveled as inflation and excessive rates of interest boosted prices for shoppers. In the meantime, the agency’s personal company struggles stymied its operations.
“The proposed transaction gives a big alternative for key components of our enterprise to proceed our legacy underneath new possession,” Tom Werner, SunPower’s govt chairman, mentioned within the assertion.
The corporate notified sellers on July 17 that it was halting new installations and shipments. Analysts interpreted the transfer as an indication that the corporate was ceasing operations, prompting some to droop protection or decrease their share-price targets to $0.
Full Solaria, the stalking horse bidder, is run by CEO T.J. Rodgers, a veteran Silicon Valley govt and an early SunPower backer who served as the corporate’s chairman from 2005 to 2011.
–With help from Jonathan Randles, Yi Wei Wong, Alice Huang and Dan Murtaugh.
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