The US bankruptcy court approved SunEdison's $ 150 million sale of assets, including its fluidized-bed reactor (FBR) polysilicon business, to Chinese polysilicon and wafer maker GCL-Poly.
According to the content of the agreement, if the subsequent related conditions are not fulfilled, SunEdison needs to return $ 50 million to GCL-Poly. The transaction still has to go through standard closing procedures, including the approval of the US Foreign Investment Commission.
If approved, GCL-Poly will receive a 65% stake in SunEdison's FBR project in Pasadena, California, and a South Korean SMP polysilicon joint venture. The Pasadena plant has been in operation since the 1980s, but the cost is high, and SunEdison announced the closure of the plant in February a few weeks before filing for bankruptcy.
However, in May, the SMP project proposed reorganization to the South Korean authorities, and the prospects for the SMP project are unknown. A person from Bernreuter Research said that GCL-Poly would have a hard time returning SunEdison SMP technology to profitability and would require new investors to successfully restructure.
It has been difficult for FBR to achieve large-scale production. REC Silicon is currently the only large-scale commercial-scale FBR production company in operation. WACKER CHEMICAL also has a 650-metric-ton FBR project.
GCL-Poly's acquisition of SunEdison FBR will mean fewer companies in the FBR space. This also means that the influence of Chinese companies is increasing, because three of the five active FBR polysilicon projects are located in China or Chinese companies have majority equity.