Complete Solar Raises $40.5 Million for SunPower Asset Acquisition
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LEHI, Utah, Sept. 09, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Complete Solar Holdings, Inc. d/b/a Complete Solar (“Complete Solar” or the “Company”) (Nasdaq: CSLR), a solar technology, services, and installation company, today announced that it had raised an additional $40.5 million to cover the remaining closing costs of its $45 million bid to take over certain SunPower (OTC: SPWRQ) business units without using incremental cash. The vehicle to raise the funds was a convertible debenture with a 7% coupon and a 25% conversion premium, bringing the “strike price” of the underlying shares to $2.1375, based on the closing price of $1.71. The board has authorized management to issue a limited number of additional convertible debenture notes under the same terms. The company said it has also created and registered a $30 million Equity Line Of Credit (ELOC) to address bidding escalation in the auction.
Cantor Fitzgerald & Co., served as Sole Financial Advisor and Placement Agent to Complete Solar, Arnold & Porter acted as legal counsel to the Company in connection with the transaction and White Lion Capital set up the ELOC.
T.J. Rodgers, Complete Solar CEO, said, “As the ‘stalking horse’ bidder in a Chapter 11 bankruptcy, we are guaranteed the first bid in SunPower’s bankruptcy proceeding, and we have been allowed limited access to a group of SunPower managers and executives, including Tom Werner, former SunPower CEO, to create a plan for SunPower’s future. We showed that plan to selected investors under a non-disclosure agreement, and they joined me in funding it.”
Rodgers concluded, “The new SunPower envisioned in our plan will be much smaller, employing about half the people on day one. Our Asset Purchase Agreement allows Complete Solar to interview and even make contingent offers to SunPower employees, but only directly and without assistance from SunPower. We were therefore overjoyed that when we activated our interviewing site last week, 1,925 SunPower and Blue Raven employees signed up within a few hours. This will help insure that SunPower, founded in 1985, remains a flagship solar company and will continue to play a pivotal role in providing pollutionless power for American homes, only five percent of which have solar today.”
Dick Swanson, the Founding CEO of SunPower, said, “I first connected with T.J. Rodgers in 2000 when he personally invested in SunPower and helped us build an automated solar cell line in the Philippines. T.J. was actually our chairman when we went public in 2005 and helped build SunPower into the highly regarded company it became. I’ve reviewed his plan to build a New SunPower and invested in it.”