It’s Tracker Day. FTC Solar has successfully gone public, joining the public markets and trading under the ticker FTCI. The original price target was $19 per share but the sale actually happened at $13 per share. The company raised a little over $130mm for the company balance sheet and some more shares were sold as a synthetic secondary. The stock did trade up to almost $15 by the end of the trading day, still representing a 7x revenue market cap.
What’s Next? You’ve been reading about it here for months and it finally happened, Nextracker, the global leader in single axis trackers, has filed for their IPO. The S-1 is still confidential but expect to see revenues well north of $1bb and margins comparable to Array Technologies. This would be the fourth tracker IPO in less than 12 months and bring the largest to the market. Nextracker is led by solar industry vets Dan Sugar and Bruce Ledesma which makes me want to be a bystander on the road show. Currently the company is wholly owned by Flex. As a side note, it is entirely possible that Nextracker valuation exceeds today’s market cap of Flex which was ~$9bb.
Clean Supply Chains. SEIA is stepping up to help the market ensure clean supply chains as it pertains to the Xinjiang forced labor reports. The Solar Supply Chain Traceability Protocol is a set of guidelines designed to help solar companies meet compliance obligations and, importantly, provide customers with assurances that their solar products are free of unethical labor practices. On April 30 at 1:00PM ET, SEIA will host a webinar to discuss the new resources and explain how solar companies can put them into practice.
Power Up, EPCs. And come ready to learn! The Business PowerSeries from EagleView – moderated by yours truly – has an upcoming webinar on scalability. Remember what happened when Icarus flew too close to the sun? This session will show you how to avoid any sinking missteps and instead scale your business using sustainable strategies. I’ll be joined by JP Gerken, CEO of Zenernet and solar selling extraordinaire. He’ll talk about what it takes to turn a business into one of the largest residential solar companies in the country. Sign up now to save your spot for May 12th!
- Reuters: Solar tracker maker FTC Solar’s shares jump 17% in Nasdaq debut
- Canary Media: Joe Biden’s Green New Steel
- PV-Tech: Enphase beats Q1 guidance but semiconductor shortages weigh heavy on forecasts
- Solar Power World: South Carolina PSC rejects Dominion solar plan, preserves net metering
- Utility Dive: Biden’s $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan meets power system needs, but leaves room for political dealing
- Energy Storage News: UK battery storage investor Gore Street raises US$190 million in a share issue
- Axios: Biden official – 2020-2030 is the “decisive decade” for climate change action
Opinion
Best, Yann