SunPower regains Nasdaq compliance, reports Q1 profit

From pv magazine USA

SunPower received an expected deficiency notification from Nasdaq indicating that it was not in compliance with the stock market’s listing rules. Its noncompliance was due to its failure to timely file its annual report on Form 10-K to the US Security Exchange Commission (SEC).

SunPower now has until June 27 to submit a plan to regain compliance with Nasdaq’s listing rule. The company said it informed the SEC on March 31 that it was delayed because it required more time to complete its year-end audit and reporting process.

SunPower CEO T.J. Rodgers said the Nasdaq’s warning “can be simplified to ‘we filed our [annual report] with the SEC 16 days late. We and our independent auditors BDO knew of the deadline but needed to spend 14,000 hours of auditing time versus the typical 6,500 hours needed for a more mature company to get the 10K report done right. There is no penalty for the delay and no impact on shareholders.”

This is not the first time Nasdaq warned SunPower of its noncompliance with its listing rule. SunPower also received a Notification of Deficiency on Mar. 20, 2024 for its failure to timely file Form 10-K. SunPower filed for bankruptcy less than six months later.

Technically, SunPower was a different company at the time. Following SunPower’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Complete Solaria, owned by former SunPower Chair Rodgers, purchased SunPower’s Blue Raven Solar business, non-installer distribution network and new homes division for $45 million. Last month, Complete Solaria announced it was formally changing its name to SunPower and updated the company’s Nasdaq ticker to SPWR. SunPower sold its leases and lease servicing assets to SunStrong.

On the same day SunPower filed its annual report with the SEC, SunPower held its earnings call for 2024 and the first quarter of 2025. The company said it was its first profitable quarter in four years. However, only SunPower’s 2024 financial results were audited, while the profitable quarter’s audit is forthcoming. SunPower said it finished the first quarter of 2025 with $14 million in cash versus $13.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2024.

Since the company acquired many of the former SunPower’s assets, the company said it reduced its workforce from 3,499 employees in October 2024 to 906 (SunPower previously reported the beginning headcount at nearly 3,000).

SunPower attributed its improved operating income to cost-cutting, reporting a shift from a $39.6 million loss in the third quarter of 2024 to a $5.9 million loss in the fourth quarter, and a $1.3 million profit in the first quarter of 2025.

“When these guys ran SunPower, it was a well-run company and the king of the world,” Rodgers said. “For the last three or so years, it wasn’t well run. And when I came in there, I found a pretty sick management structure, expensive, aloof, not detail oriented. Having said that, SunPower has got thousands [sic] of really good people in it, people you couldn’t get anywhere else.”

When asked about SunPower’s revenue growth, margins for the next couple years and the impact of a possible recession, Rodgers said his job is similar to a goalie in hockey.

“I stand there and catch the pucks before they get in the net. So can I have a long-term forecast? I can, but it’s based on positioning more so than actually looking at what you project the [profit and loss] to be,” he said. “Right now, we have a very lean workforce and it’s going to get leaner.”

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