Dive Brief:
- Five months after a bankruptcy judge approved its plan, SunEdison has emerged from Chapter 11 as a newly-reorganized, privately-held company.
- The company has executed more than $2.3 billion in gross asset sales through the bankruptcy proceeding, including its most valuable assets, yieldcos TerraForm Power Inc. and TerraForm Global Inc., and now has a much smaller footprint.
- At one time a leader in clean energy development, SunEdison filed for bankruptcy protection in 2016 following a buying spree that ended with Vivint Solar canceling a proposed $1.82 billion merger deal.
Dive Insight:
Once the biggest renewables developer in the world, SunEdison was in the midst of a buying spree that would become the company's undoing.
At the end of that September of that same year, it reported $11.7 billion in debt — more than twice the load just one year before. The company began to unravel after Vivant canceled their merger deal, prompting questions from investors whether it borrowed too much, too fast.
The Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York confirmed SunEdison's reorganization plan on July 28, 2017. The new chairman and CEO will be Richard Katz.
John Dubel, the company's CEO and chief restructuring officer during the process, noted that during the negotiation of the company's bankruptcy plan SunEdison "facilitated key settlements with its diverse constituent groups."
PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and Rothschild Inc. both served as financial advisor and investment banker for SunEdison. The company's existing common stock has been canceled.
