It’s difficult to know what is going on at Spruce Finance these days. As early as February the company laid off an unknown number of staff, which was followed by the departure of executives throughout the spring, culminating in CEO Nat Kreamer leaving the company earlier this month.
Along the way Spruce retained Goldman Sachs, which was rumored to be part of plans to sell the company; however Spruce neither confirmed nor denied these rumors. And now yesterday the company announced the sale of $250 million of solar and efficiency loans to a “large North American bank with expertise in consumer loan assets”.
Spruce says that the sale will help to grow its business. “The capital unlocked from this transaction, combined with incremental capital recently provided by a global investment firm, will support the future growth of our business,” said Steve Olszewski, Spruce’s new CEO.
The company also says that it expects the sale to serve as a foundation for future loan flow sales transactions. However it is less clear if this is the basis for a new pass-through business, or something that Spruce needed to do to survive the headwinds in the U.S. residential solar sector, which fell 17% in volume during Q1.
Either way, the company is holding its cards close to its chest.
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