Vivint Solar, Inc. is an American solar energy company. Founded in 2011 as an offshoot of Vivint home security, Vivint Solar went public in 2014. Vivint Solar is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange. It was launched as a solar electricity provider that designs, installs, and maintains the residential photovoltaic system.
Vivint Solar operates in 20 U.S. states (Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Vermont, and Virginia), with expansive marketing programs in those markets. According to GTM Research, Vivint Solar was the number two residential solar installer in the United States in 2013, and maintaining its No. 2 position as of the end of 2015. It has installed over 40,000 solar panel systems as of the end of March 2015. Several states have high potential solar growth, allowing for as much as 74% of the electricity needs from solar panel only. Newer types of solar panel currently under development might increase this still further.
The company is considered to be a green home technology company and is the fastest growing solar energy company in the U.S. which uses the power purchase agreement (PPA) model. It uses fleet vehicles carrying the traditional Vivint orange coloration.
Vivint Solar had a strong beginning after their IPO but has been dogged with problems since 2015, including declining sales, increased competition from other solar power companies, low stock price, two class action lawsuits against the company, and a troubled buyout offer from SunEdison
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Approach
As of 2012, the company installed solar panels at no cost to the homeowner, usually via a power purchase agreement (PPA). Vivint Solar owns, installs, and maintains solar panels on customers' homes in exchange for customers agreeing to purchase the solar energy their panels produce. Customers do not pay for installation; in lieu of this the company makes its money by selling back to the customers the energy produced, for the life of the contracts, at rates that are initially substantially lower than their previous electric utility charges. Vivint Solar's customers purchase energy or lease solar energy systems based on one of two types of long-term contracts--a PPA or a lease. In the PPA structure, customers pay a fee per kilowatt hour based on the amount of electricity the solar energy system actually produces. In the lease structure, the customer's monthly payment is fixed based on a calculation that takes into account expected solar energy generation. The lease includes a production guarantee under which Vivint Solar agrees to make a payment to the customer if the leased system does not meet the guaranteed production level.
Most of Vivint Solar's growth as of 2013 had come from door-to-door sales.
As of 2016, however, the PPA model was losing favor with consumers who increasingly preferred to buy solar power systems outright rather than lease them or engage in PPAs. This change has contributed to Vivint's financial troubles.
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Corporate history
In October 2011, home automation company Vivint, Inc. started and incorporated a new, solar division of the company, Vivint Solar. In November 2012, the Blackstone Group acquired a controlling interest in Vivint, Vivint Solar, and 2GIG Technologies for in excess of $2 billion.After the Blackstone acquisition, the solar division evolved and became Vivint Solar, LLC., a separate, but related company.
In October 2014, Vivint Solar opened for public trading on the New York Stock Exchange. A class-action lawsuit was filed against Vivint in December 2014, with allegations that the company misled investors in their Initial Public Offering by omitting data that showed the company's PPA model was falling out of favor with consumers. Vivint contended that the lawsuit lacked legal merit.
In February 2015, Vivint Solar broke ground on a new corporate campus in Lehi, Utah near Thanksgiving Point, and began operating from there in May 2016. This five-story steel-construction high-rise is ultra-modern, and provides cafeteria service for its employees like its parent Vivint's corporate headquarters.
In July 2015, SunEdison announced plans to buy Vivint Solar for $2.2 billion USD. In March 2016, Vivint Solar announced that the SunEdison deal had been terminated, and that the company was suing SunEdison for a "willful breach" of the planned merger. SunEdison is in bankruptcy as of January 2017, and Vivint Solar is one of many creditors. A second proposed class action lawsuit was filed in May 2016, arguing that Vivint misled investors about the SunEdison buyout offer.
Due to other financing arrangements after the failed SunEdison negotiations, Vivint Solar was predicted in mid-2016 to enter 2017 stronger than before, but as of April 2017 their stock remains below $3 per share in comparison to a high of about $15 in 2015. Analysis from early 2017 found that while Vivint Solar had greater access to capital, actual installation of home solar panels fell substantially with a drop of 21% from late 2015 to late 2016.
In May 2016, Greg Butterfield stepped down as CEO of Vivint Solar. David Bywater was announced as interim CEO while the board searched for a permanent replacement for Butterfield. After proving himself, David Bywater was subsequently named by the Board of Directors as the permanent replacement in December 2016.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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