SunEdison Promises New Strategy

SunEdison Inc., the big solar-power developer whose stock has fallen abruptly out of favor with investors, tried to woo them back Wednesday with promises to revamp its business strategy.

The company, based in Maryland Heights, Mo., will lay off 1,000 employees, or 15% of its workforce, and stop selling solar and wind farms to its own affiliated companies, which has confused investors. Instead, SunEdison plans to sell some of its renewable energy assets to power utilities.

The company recently dropped its bid to acquire Latin American Power, which owns wind farms and hydropower projects in Chile and Peru.

"We de-emphasized countries, consolidated divisions and walked away from things that didn't make sense in the current dislocation in the market," said Chief Executive Ahmad Chatilla during a conference call with investors.

Shares of SunEdison rose 15% to trade around $10 a share Wednesday morning, but were still lower by 68% since mid-July.

SunEdison's woes illustrate how fortunes can quickly change for a money-losing company when investors grow skeptical.

The renewable energy company has failed to turn a profit for the last 2½ years, but financial performance in recent quarters has worsened. This year's second-quarter loss was $263 million, or 89 cents a share, five times the company's loss in the same quarter a year earlier.

Analysts polled by FactSet expect SunEdison to report a full-year 2015 adjusted loss of $3.06 a share, more than triple its loss for 2014. Expected revenue of $1.7 billion for this year will come in 24% lower than last year analysts said.

Write to Cassandra Sweet at [e-mail]

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 07, 2015 11:35 ET (15:35 GMT)

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