What: Shares of beaten-down solar company SunEdison Inc (SUNEQ) jumped as much as 19% today after the company announced some management changes.
So what: SunEdison's CFO Brian Wuebbels has been named president and CEO of TerraForm Global (NASDAQ: GLBL) and TerraForm Power (TERP), the company's two yieldcos. Rebecca Cranna, another SunEdison insider, will take over as CFO.
Along with the management changes, TerraForm Global and TerraForm Power said they will turn their strategic focus to buying projects from SunEdison rather than relying partly on acquisitions from third parties.
Now what: If it sounds like SunEdison is consolidating power, that's exactly what is going on here. What's concerning for TerraForm Global and TerraForm Power is that they're now further tied to SunEdison, which I would argue is using yieldcos to pay for operating expenses and to buy projects at artificially high prices. Further tying the two together gives little independent oversight over the yieldcos and further muddles the value proposition of all three companies.
There's nothing about these moves that screams good corporate oversight, and given the fact that Wuebbels has been CFO of SunEdison since 2012 as the company became an overleveraged renewable company, I have my doubts about his ability to turn around these yieldcos. Investors should look at the entire SunEdison family of companies with skepticism. Until they prove the ability to make money building projects and selling them to third parties, I would stay clear of these stocks.
