What: Shares of SunEdison Inc (SUNE +0.00%) surged as much as 13% early today after it announced a series of restructuring initiatives.
So what: After seeing its stock lose three-quarters of its value this year, SunEdison has decided to change course. Management is going to "optimally position the company for long term profitable growth," which apparently wasn't the focus before.
Specifically, SunEdison will focus on high profit-potential markets like the U.S., India, China, and Latin America. It will also simplify its structure, which may have duplications after multiple acquisitions in the past year, including reportedly laying off 10% of its workforce. It's also being reported by GTM Research that the staff acquired in the Solar Grid Storage acquisition have been let go, indicating that SunEdison may not see any near-term benefit to energy storage.
Now what: When you go on an acquisition spree like SunEdison has done over the past year, you can often get bloated with duplicate roles. So, it's not surprising the company is cutting staff.
What's concerning is that it appears to be changing its strategy from doing everything renewable to focusing on a smaller subset of projects. That may be the right strategy, but can it grow fast enough to pay down, or refinance, over $10 billion in debt? I have my doubts about that, and that's why I won't be buying the dip today and would wait to get bullish on this stock until SunEdison proves it can actually be a profitable company.
