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Japan's Sharp Considers Selling US-Based Solar Energy Subsidiary As Company Winds Down Overseas Solar Ventures

Published 09/08/2014, 10:35 AM
Updated 09/08/2014, 10:45 AM
Japan's Sharp Considers Selling US-Based Solar Energy Subsidiary As Company Winds Down Overseas Solar Ventures

Japan's Sharp Considers Selling US-Based Solar Energy Subsidiary As Company Winds Down Overseas Solar Ventures

By Maria Gallucci - Japanese electronics giant Sharp Corp. TYO:6753 is steadily whittling down its solar energy operations. The company is now seeking to sell its U.S. solar development unit Recurrent Energy, just months after pulling out of several other overseas solar ventures, Bloomberg News reported on Monday.

“Sharp is considering various options for Recurrent including sale of the company, but nothing has been decided at this point,” spokeswoman Miyuki Nakayama told Bloomberg. Recurrent Energy declined to comment to the news organization.

Sharp paid $350 million in cash to buy the San Francisco-based developer in 2010. Selling the solar unit would help Sharp to raise capital as it struggles to balance its debt-to-equity ratio, Reuters noted.

The deal follows Sharp’s decision in January to stop making solar panels at its plants in Memphis, Tennessee and in the UK. The company also pulled out of an Italian panel manufacturing joint venture. Profit in Sharp’s energy unit plunged 97 percent in its first fiscal quarter amid slowing residential solar sales in Japan, Bloomberg said.

© REUTERS/Recurrent Energy/Handout. California Gov. Jerry Brown (R) and then-U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar (C) join Recurrent Energy CEO Arno Harris for a tour of a solar energy installation in California in 2012. Sharp Corp. is seeking to sell Recurrent Energy as it whittles down its overseas solar ventures.

Recurrent Energy has developed and sold more than 680 megawatts of projects in the United States and Canada and has more than 4,300 megawatts under development, according to the company. Google Inc. NASDAQ:GOOGL and the private equity group KKR & Co. in November teamed up with Recurrent Energy to six utility-scale solar projects in California and Arizona, in a deal valued at $400 million.

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