Thursday, June 9, 2016

SunEdison Bankruptcy

In April 2016, solar energy company SunEdison filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.  Yesterday, the company won court approval for a $1.3 billion operating loan, but in an indication of the contentious nature of the bankruptcy, part of the loan is designated to fund a creditor probe into the company's activities, particularly in November. During that time, the company reconstituted the boards of two yieldcos, fired the conflicts committees of those yieldcos, and named Sun Edison's own CFO as the CEO of both yieldcos. A shareholder lawsuit in the bankruptcy argues, in part, that the corporate governance was insufficient as conflicts committees were reformed when the yieldcos would not prepay for solar projects that were being developed in India.