SolarCity Shares Soak Up Sun With Silevo Acquisition

In an 8-K report filed Tuesday, SolarCity SCTY announced that the company entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Silevo on Monday.

The filing states, “SolarCity is to acquire Silevo through a series of statutory mergers in exchange for shares of SolarCity's common stock with an aggregate value of $200 million as of the closing of the transaction, subject to adjustments as set forth in the Agreement (the “Closing Consideration”), and shares of SolarCity's common stock with an aggregate value of up to an additional $150 million upon the achievement of certain milestones as set forth within the Agreement (the “Earnout Consideration” and together with the Closing Consideration, the “Total Consideration”).

"The number of shares of SolarCity's common stock issuable as Closing Consideration or any Earnout Consideration will be based upon the 20-day volume-weighted sales price of SolarCity's common stock on The NASDAQ Global Select Market as of the third day prior to issuance.”

In a blog by Elon Musk, Peter Rive and Lyndon Rive, the authors described the details of the transaction. The blog describes the plans to build “one of the single largest solar panel production plants in the world” with Silevo.

“Given that there is excess supplier capacity today, this may seem counter-intuitive to some who follow the solar industry. What we are trying to address is not the lay of the land today, where there are indeed too many suppliers, most of whom are producing relatively low photonic efficiency solar cells at uncompelling costs, but how we see the future developing. Without decisive action to lay the groundwork today, the massive volume of affordable, high efficiency panels needed for unsubsidized solar power to outcompete fossil fuel grid power simply will not be there when it is needed.”

The press release states that Elon Musk, Peter Rive and Lyndon Rive will host a conference call on Tuesday to discuss the acquisition at 10:00 a.m. ET.

Shares of SolarCity closed at $54.88 on Monday and are currently up 5.82 percent shortly after the opening bell.