Economics

Solar Company Slashes Share Prices Prior to IPO

Not exactly a promising sign

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The planned IPO for solar panel installer, sales and leasing company SolarCity has hit some storm clouds. After first delaying its IPO by a day, the company decided to cut the offer price of its shares by almost half – from an initial range of $13 to $15 per share to $8. Clearly not enough of the institutional investors that had been shopped the deal were biting at the higher original price, which valued Solar City much higher than other publicly traded solar companies.

According to the company's updated S-1 from the Securities and Exchange Commission, SolarCity now plans to sell 11.4 million shares at $8, with proceeds of $91.2 million. Initially, the San Mateo-based solar-energy company was planning to sell 10.07 million shares, hoping to raise $151 million.