SunPower Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2017 Results

منشور على 22-2-2018
SunPower 
SunPower Corp. announced financial results for its fourth quarter ended December 31, 2017.


"We are pleased with our results for the quarter, which were the product of solid execution across all business segments," said Tom Werner, SunPower president and CEO. "In our distributed generation business, demand remained strong through the end of the year, enabling SunPower to gain share in both our residential and commercial segments. Our solid performance in commercial reflected the completion of a number of key projects including the 28MW Vandenberg Air Force project while expanding our footprint in storage and booking of our first Helix storage project. Demand for our high quality, industry leading residential solutions remained robust as we exceeded plan in all core markets. For the full year, our residential MW deployments grew more than 25 percent, reinforcing our market leadership position in this segment. In our power plant business, we completed and sold the 110MW El Pelicano project in Chile in the fourth quarter generating significant cash and delevering the balance sheet. We are seeing continued growth in our SunPower Solutions group as well, including the recent award of 115MW of rooftop projects in the latest French tender. 

"In our upstream business, we are on track to achieve our long-term cost reduction targets and our Fabs remain at 100 percent utilization. We are particularly pleased with the progress of our next generation solar cell and module technology and are proceeding with installation of the first full-scale Next Generation Technology (NGT) manufacturing line at Fab 3 with volume production planned in the second half of this year. 

"We executed well against our 2017 strategic goals, significantly improving cash flow, continuing our restructuring efforts and reducing operating expenses. In our power plant business, we remain focused on transitioning from project development to equipment supply through our SunPower Solutions group in order to improve capital investment returns as well as reduce SunPower's risk profile. We are also continuing with our plans to identify and monetize assets as evidenced by our recent announcement on the proposed sale of our ownership stake in 8point3 Energy Partners. Additionally, we expect to monetize more than 400MW of SunPower leases that we currently hold on our balance sheet. Combined, both of these actions will materially improve our liquidity, delever our balance sheet and simplify our financial statements. Also, we will utilize these additional resources to further invest in our core growth initiatives including our next generation cell and panel technology, our digital platform, energy storage and our distributed generation business.

"In relation to the 201 solar tariff decision, the product exclusion process was published today. We will continue to work through this process with the Administration to convey that only SunPower can make a copper-plated, interdigitated back contact solar cells and that with an exclusion, SunPower can further invest in research and development to improve on its market-leading efficiency and performance while demonstrating America's continuing leadership in solar energy innovation. Unfortunately, we are already seeing a negative near-term impact from the ruling as the increased costs due to import tariffs have delayed certain 2018 projects and made other projects uneconomical. We have also put our planned $20 million U.S. employment expansion on hold and are considering other significant cost saving initiatives to lower our overall expense structure and improve our financial performance. Given the early stages of this review, we are not prepared to discuss specific actions at this time but expect to communicate our plans on or before our next earnings call. Our focus has been, and will continue to be, on driving cash flow, strengthening our balance sheet and positioning the company for sustained profitability."

"Our solid project execution in all market segments and prudent management of expenses enabled us to achieve our fourth quarter goals," said Chuck Boynton, SunPower chief financial officer. "Financially, we benefitted from our restructuring efforts as operating expenses declined more than 20 percent year over year. We posted positive cash flow for the quarter and exited the year with more than $450 million in cash, ahead of our forecasts. With our current liquidity, the pending sale of our ownership position in 8point3 and the expected monetization of approximately 400MW of lease assets later this year, we are confident we will have the resources available to retire our $300 million convertible bond in June and fund areas of growth in 2018."

As mentioned above, the company, in accordance with its announced strategic review, made the decision in the fourth quarter to monetize its interests in its high-quality lease portfolio. The company currently holds approximately 400MW of leases with more than 45,000 customers representing more than $1.4 billion of long-term receivables. This decision, which is expected to generate at least $200 million in proceeds, in line with the company's efforts to improve its liquidity. While the lease assets are performing at, or better than our expectations, due to our decision to monetize and deconsolidate the portfolio, the company determined it was necessary to evaluate the potential for impairment in its ability to recover the carrying amount of its lease portfolio on a discounted cash flow basis. In accordance with such evaluation, the company recorded a $474 million non-cash GAAP charge driven primarily by the difference of lease accounting treatment and the applied discount rate for lease assets that would be held to maturity versus the rate applied to the sale of assets before maturity. The company expects to incur additional charges in the first quarter as it adds leases through the close of the proposed transaction. SunPower believes that this transaction will drive significant cash proceeds, a reduction in invested capital as well as a more transparent presentation of its financial statements.

Fourth quarter fiscal 2017 non-GAAP results exclude net adjustments that, in the aggregate, improved non-GAAP earnings by $604.4 million, including $28.4 million related to sale-leaseback transactions, $473.7 million related to impairment of residential lease assets, $81.8 million related to cost of above market polysilicon, $9.3 million related to stock-based compensation expense, $8.8 million related to intangibles, and $2.4 million of other non-GAAP adjustments.


المصدر: SunPower Corp.
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