Sacramento photovoltaic module manufacturer and installer SPI Energy Co. Ltd. is spinning off its SolarJuice subsidiary in a stock offering.
SolarJuice Co. Ltd. would be based in Australia, and SPI Energy (Nasdaq: SPI) would own more than 50% of its voting shares, according to a registration statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a foreign-owned company to be listed on an American exchange.
SolarJuice would also own the photovoltaic panel manufacturing operation SPI Energy currently owns at McClellan Park.
The prospective shares for SolarJuice Co. Ltd. have not been priced and there is no number of shares offered listed yet.
The company would be based in Sydney, but it would be traded on the Nasdaq Stock Market under the ticker symbol SJA. The offering would be led by New York investment bank Maxim Group LLC.
SPI Energy didn’t respond to calls from the Business Journal seeking comment.
The company appears to be seeking to attract investment interest in domestic-sourced solar panels.
SolarJuice would own current SPI Energy subsidiaries SJ Australia, which is a wholesale solar distributor; U.S. solar installer SJ America; and the Sacramento-based solar panel manufacturing operation SJ Technology.
SolarJuice operates in every state in Australia, and in the U.S. it operates in California, Nevada, Texas, Colorado and Florida. In July the company paused its residential installations in all states except California due to insufficient business activity. The company said in its SEC filing that it continuously assesses market demand.
A SolarJuice subsidiary, SJ Technology, opened its first U.S.-based solar module assembly factory in January in McClellan Park. It began a pilot production line in the second quarter this year, and it has begun delivering solar modules under its Solar4America brand.
SPI Energy leases 195,000 square feet of industrial space at McClellan, where it can produce 1.1 gigawatts of solar panels annually. The U.S. Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy calculates that 1 gigawatt is equal to 3.1 million solar panels.
The company said it plans to produce 2.4 gigawatts of solar panels per year by the end of 2023 at its location at McClellan and another location it plans to develop on the East Coast.
SPI Energy in December, and in its registration statement for Solar Juice, issued a "going concern" warning, an accounting term that warns there is considerable doubt that the company can meet its financial obligations.
The company reported a net loss of $600,000 for the first half of this year, a time when the company spent $4.3 million. The company had an accumulated deficit of $31.8 million at June 30, and a working capital deficit of $1.1 million.
“These conditions raise substantial doubt about the company's ability to continue as a going concern,” the company wrote in its registration statement.
Company management said they believe the company will meet its liquidity and cash flow requirements within a year.
SPI Energy expects to begin generating operating cash flow from its solar module assembly factory at McClellan in the fourth quarter this year, and it anticipates revenue will increase through 2023 as the factory reaches capacity.
The company said it intends to duplicate the McClellan manufacturing operation in other locations in the U.S. over the next few years.
SPI Energy also develops, owns and operates solar projects that sell electricity to power companies and government-owned utility companies, according to financial statements. As of March 30, it owned and operated 16.8 megawatts of solar projects.
SPI Energy moved its headquarters from Santa Clara to McClellan in May.
SPI started in Roseville in 2006 as Solar Power Inc., manufacturing solar panels in China and installing solar-power systems in the U.S., Europe and Asia. A majority interest in the company was acquired by a Chinese company in 2011, which moved the headquarters to the Bay Area. SPI Energy took over the rest of SPI in 2016.
