SEC investigating alleged SunEdison liquidity claims

Share

Following last week’s reports that beleaguered U.S. clean energy firm SunEdison had entered into debtor-in-possession talks with a bankruptcy filing increasingly likely, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) has reported that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is investigating the company’s liquidity claims.

Specifically, the SEC is looking into claims made last August by SunEdison that it had more than $1 billion in cash to hand and was looking to form a warehouse investment vehicle alongside a fund managed by Goldman Sachs Group.

According to the report, SunEdison’s Q3 filing’s were misleading, stating that the $1.4 billion the company had in cash consisted largely of equity that it could not access. That reported balance had dropped below $100 million by November, WSJ allege.

In the WSJ report, it states that the $1.4 billion figure was largely "trapped inside individual power projects and earmarked for construction or debt service", making the funds off-limits to SunEdison. The figure also included a $500 million credit facility that could only be accessed if SunEdison was able to meet certain criteria.

Having seen its shares tumble by more than 95% in the space of a year, SunEdison has been struggling to pay contractors and suppliers, spooking would-be partners and collaborators in the process. Late last year the Hawaii utility Hawaiian Electric Co. terminated three PPAs for 148 MW of completed solar projects, while a few weeks ago U.S. residential solar company Vivint Solar terminated a proposed merger and acquisition by SunEdison.

Last week, rumors emerged that SunEdison was in talks with advisors on a potential Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, and the company’s continued silence on such matters – allied to its delayed Q4 financial reports – only serves to stoke the flames of doubt over its long-term stability.

Popular content

This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.

Share

Related content

Elsewhere on pv magazine...

Leave a Reply

Please be mindful of our community standards.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.

Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.

You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.

Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.