Once a solar star, SunEdison goes bankrupt

NEW YORK- SunEdison (SUNE) appears to have flown too close to the sun.

The one-time solar energy start said Thursday it is filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after years of rapid-fire acquisitions left company short of cash.

The company reported debt of $16.1 billion in filing with the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York on Thursday, according to Bloomberg News. That makes it the biggest corporate bankruptcy of the year.

SunEdison CEO Ahmad Chatila said declaring bankruptcy will help the company she non-core assets and become more efficient.

"Our decision to initiate a court-supervised restructuring was a difficult but important step to address our immediate liquidity issues," he said in a statement. "The court process will allow us to right-size our balance sheet and reduce our debt, providing the opportunity to support the business going forward while focusing on our core strengths."

SunEdison has lined up $300 million in debtor-in-possession financing from its lenders to fund its operations while it is under court supervision.

Just last week, an audit committee reviewing operations at the Maryland Heights, Missouri, company found an "overly optimistic culture and its tone at the top." The committee also said that at SunEdison, "cash forecasting efforts lack sufficient controls and processes."

In recent years SunEdison had driven growth by spending billions of dollars on acquisitions, with investors pushing up its stock price last year to $32 a share. But a scuttled deal to buy rooftop solar company Vivint in 2015 for more than $2 billion undermined investor confidence in SunEdison's business strategy.

Further complicating the picture for SunEdison was its decision to create two separate publicly traded companies, known as "yieldcos," to house its assets. That strategy failed after SunEdison wound up purchasing too many outside projects, according to Michael Morosi, an analyst with Avondale Partners.

Solar companies have been hurt by the plunge in oil prices over the last year and the resulting tumble in prices for natural gas, which recently overtook coal as the most common fuel for power generation.