Solar panel company Maxeon Solar Technologies will lay off 15% of its total employees by the end of the year to manage the impacts of reduced shipments from one distributed generation (DG) client in North America and an “industry-wide demand slowdown” in global DGl markets, the business announced in a press release yesterday.
Bill Mulligan, Maxeon’s CEO, said in the statement that the company has decided to “streamline” operations, invest in new technologies and develop a mix between DG and utility-scale markets due to the “rapidly changing market and industry conditions.”
“We believe that Maxeon is well positioned to weather this market disruption and come out stronger on the other side,” he said.
The press release mentions that the company’s largest North America-based DG customer recently “breached their payment obligations” and the company paused shipments in late July as a result.
“While this customer has recently made several payments on their outstanding balance and is now close to becoming current, we continue to pause our shipments and engage in good faith towards [the] resolution of certain ongoing claims of breach under the Master Supply Agreement,” Mulligan explained.
“We do not have visibility into how quickly such resolution can be achieved. It is our position that we have firm quantity and pricing contracts in place.”
The 35-year-old Maxeon – based in Singapore but with a presence in 13 0ther countries – expects its third quarter 2023 revenue to be in the range of $224—$229 million, with shipments between 622 MW—632 MW. The company’s EBITDA, meanwhile, is slated to drop by roughly $30 million in Q3 2023 due to the reasons listed above and “inventory adjustments.”
The company will provide further details on Q3 2023 results and Q4 2023 guidance, as well as more information about restructuring activities, during its Q3 2023 earnings call, currently scheduled for November 15, 2023.
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