US residential solar provider SunPower has announced that CEO Peter Faricy has left the company.
In a statement, the company said Faricy departed on 26 February 2024 without mentioning the reason for his departure, and that it would move to recruit a new permanent CEO. At the same time, the company established an “office of the chairman”, led by executive chairman of the board Tom Werner, to direct business operations.
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“On behalf of the board, I want to thank Peter for his contributions to SunPower and advancing our mission of changing the way our world is powered. We will also continue to build an even stronger operating discipline as we focus on profitability and achieving positive free cash flow,” said Werner.
SunPower experienced several challenges in its business last year. In its financial announcement for the fourth quarter of 2023, the company posted its fourth consecutive quarter of lower customer growth and a net loss of US$247 million for FY2023.
The company only added 16,000 new customers in the fourth quarter of 2023, down from 18,800 (14.9%) in the previous quarter, a decline of 14.9%, and from 23,700 in the fourth quarter of 2022, a decline of 32.5%. The company said lower year-on-year installations reflected the impact of reduced bookings since May 2023 under higher interest rates and net energy metering (NEM) 3.0 in California, as well as the winding down of NEM 2.0 installations.
Earlier in 2023, SunPower was sued for alleged inaccurate accounting. The solar company revealed an internal control problem on 24 October 2023, saying that “in connection with the preparation of the financial statements, the company preliminarily determined that the value of consignment inventory of microinverter components at certain third-party locations had been overstated in the range of approximately US$16-20 million”.
According to a statement published by law firm Bragar Eagel & Squire, SunPower would be restating certain previously issued financial statements for fiscal year 2022 and the first two quarters of 2023.
Moreover, it announced that it had breached a credit agreement in December 2023, sparking concerns over its ability to stay in business.
However, recently, the company secured over US$300 million in project financing commitments for its residential solar and storage lease programmes.
The funding was secured from funds managed by equity firm Apollo, investment firm ATLAS SP Partners and Hannon Armstrong Sustainable Infrastructure Capital (HASI) and will support SunPower’s ability to offer a variety of financing options to its customers. It also builds on a recent capital raise of US$175 million, announced earlier this month.
