Image source: SunEdison.
What: Shares of yieldco TerraForm Global Inc (NASDAQ: GLBL) jumped as much as 21% just before noon EDT on Thursday after the company's CEO stepped down.
So what: Brian Wuebbels, who was the CFO of SunEdison and one of the engineers behind creating TerraForm Global in the first place, has stepped down as CEO of the yieldco. It was less than a month ago that he left as CFO of SunEdison to focus on being CEO of both TerraForm Global and TerraForm Power.
Now what: Under Wuebbels leadership, SunEdison has reached the brink of bankruptcy and a failure of internal controls has led to the delay of annual filings for SunEdison, TerraForm Power, and TerraForm Global. Given that terrible track record, it's no wonder the market loves the fact that he's no longer running the company.
The bigger hope is that TerraForm Global will now start cutting ties to SunEdison. It's been used as a piggy bank for the renewable energy developer, but with SunEdison moving toward bankruptcy there may be enough pressure to install a new board of directors (not from SunEdison) and a new management team. Those moves wouldn't assure the company's survival given the risks SunEdison's bankruptcy could pose on the business, but it would help give investors and counterparties assurances that changes are coming into place. And that's a hope investors are betting on today.
