Sun Edison filed for Chapter 11 - not a big surprise

[peakbagger]

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/04/21/suned...on-report.html

I expect there are quite a few sales folks tuning up their resumes.

[solarix]

It is companies like SunEdison that have been screwing up the solar market. They built a solar farm for a local town here and promised them it would save over $1000/month on their expenses. Well, they are in court over it now, and the local population is hearing from the town leaders that solar is no good. Sooner or later, the solar trade will be the same as the rest of the service trades and largely consist of small, local shops with low overhead, small margins and good reputations - not big, finance oriented, bloated, nation-wide companies full of suits.

[SunEagle]

I am always sad to hear about a US solar equipment manufacturer that is going out of business. Especially a large one like SunEdison.

But like a number of companies that are small to medium sized and start off doing well, they get greedy and try to expand too quickly and end up rolling up and dropping out.

I wouldn't worry too much about the solar trade. It will continue to grow based on large POCO sized generating plants. The home business may see a short lived upturn as long as the FED incentives are still around but unless the installed cost drops to below $2/watt putting in a small private system is still too expensive for most people.

[peakbagger]

Having worked with a tech firm that Wall Street got a hold of I got a glimpse of the mentality that takes over. The managers are rewarded to maximize short term growth at all costs even if the decisions will lead to disaster for the company a few years out. Most folks figure they will cash out quick or be promoted long before the future occurs. Anyone who pointed out the obvious would be marginalized In order to cover short term issues the company grows by rapid acquisition as the consolidated financial statements take a few years to catch up to the reality that the company is bleeding cash. It works until they run out of things to buy and the balance sheet catches up. Hopefully some of the successful parts of the company survive.

Even worse are some companies reorganize, shaft the investors and repeat. My old employer did and is now listed on the Toronto exchange.

[J.P.M.]

I too am sad when a decent company goes under. But, and probably inferring agreement with Peakbagger and Solarix, scumbag outfits won't be missed, nor will the shills and simplistic opportunists who lead the solar ignorant to believe R.E. can do anything.

As the public becomes more knowledgeable and market penetration gets beyond first adoptors, the market shakeout will continue and the environment for product improvement can get better, or at least more cost effective. However, the scumbags and shills will be with us always. It's just business.