Sharp plans to sell Recurrent Energy LLC for 25 billion yen ($321 million) as part of a restructuring plan, the Kyodo News agency said today.
Osaka-based Sharp paid $305 million in 2010 for a 100 percent stake in Recurrent Energy, a solar project developer. The San Francisco-based company has a portfolio of 500 megawatts of solar projects awarded and a development pipeline of 2.5 gigawatts, according to a company website.
The sale is included in a restructuring at Sharp that will include the elimination of 10,966 jobs by the end of March 2014, Kyodo said. Sharp spokeswoman Miyuki Nakayama declined to comment on the Kyodo report.
Sharp entered the solar market in 1959 when it began developing solar cells, according to the company’s website. Four years later, Sharp began mass output and in 2008 became the world’s first to achieve cumulative production of 2 gigawatts of solar cells, according to a history posted on Sharp’s website.
The Japanese company is part of a group behind Italy’s largest solar manufacturing facility in Sicily. The venture between Enel Green Power, the renewables unit of Italian utility Enel SpA, Sharp, and STMicroelectronics NV was inaugurated in 2011 with an initial production capacity of 160 megawatts a year.
As part of Sharp’s reorganization, the company’s two main banks plan to back a revival package from the Japanese television maker and will contribute about 360 billion yen in loans, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.
Mizuho Financial Group and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group plan to approve the package presented yesterday by September 30, the people said, asking not to be identified before an announcement. Resona Holdings and Nippon Life Insurance may join in providing the loans, Kyodo reported yesterday, without citing anyone.
