SolarCity raises another $241 million

Sammons Renewable Energy led the equity portion of the $241 million cash equity transaction, which closed last week.

Shifting sales strategies by national residential installers like SolarCity will cause customer acquisition costs to rise in the short term - but as the market adjusts, GTM Research predicts they will fall below their previous 2013 lows.

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As the nation’s largest distributed solar installer and a third-party solar company, SolarCity has an insatiable appetite for capital to deploy more solar. After being formally acquired by Tesla a month ago, it would appear that SolarCity’s capital worries were over.

However, the company is still raising cash at a furious rate, with the latest being a $241 million cash equity transaction which closed on December 16. Texas-based Sammons Renewable Energy (SRE) led the equity portion of this transaction, which Tesla has not reported in its financial filings.

As part of this deal Sammons is investing in SolarCity PV projects in 16 U.S. states, including 26,000 residential systems and 19 commercial and industrial arrays. Sammons says that this is part of its plans to expand its renewable energy holdings.

“We are pleased to close this transaction with SolarCity and look forward to additional investments in the North American renewable energy market,” commented Tom Tribone, chief executive officer of Franklin Park, SRE’s management partner. “Our objective is to partner with strong development companies and to acquire solar, wind and hydroelectric projects either at commencement of construction or project completion.”

Tesla has also been raising substantial cash, with an SEC filing revealing that it has expanded two existing credit agreements by a total of $500 million. There is no mention in the filing that any of the changes to these credit arrangements relate to Tesla’s solar business through SolarCity.

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