SunPower Corp. (NASDAQ: SPWRA; SPWRB) today announced a reorganization to align its businesses and cost structure with expected market conditions in 2012 and beyond. Several of our longest-tenured executives will adjust their areas of responsibility, including Howard Wenger, who will assume the title of President, Regions and Jack Peurach, who will assume the title Executive Vice President, Products, and Marty Neese, who will remain Chief Operating Officer with expanded responsibilities. These changes will be effective immediately. In addition, the company announced today on its earnings call that its Chief Financial Officer, Dennis Arriola, will be leaving the company in March of 2012 and that Jim Pape, its President, Residential and Commercial, will be leaving the company later this month.
"SunPower's differentiated technology and vertically integrated, diversified channel strategy has established our company as a leader in the industry and positioned us well to address the challenges of the current solar market environment," said Tom Werner, SunPower CEO. "As we look to 2012, we plan to align our business structure to accelerate our product and technology innovation, increase the efficiency of our processes and reduce our costs. We are reorganizing the company to a regional business focus, a products group with product line profit and loss responsibility, and we will extend the responsibility of our upstream group to incorporate the research and development of our world-leading efficiency solar cell and panels.
"I thank Howard, Jack and Marty for stepping up to new or expanded roles at SunPower," continued Werner. "Over the last three years, Dennis has established a culture of strong controls, continual process improvements and high quality standards in the finance and accounting teams, and built up a strong set of leaders around him. After the recent successful series of financings and credit facilities that he and his team have completed, I accepted his request to transition out of the company to pursue new opportunities and thank him for his leadership and contributions during tremendous growth at SunPower. Similarly, Jim Pape has grown the residential and commercial business in scale, footprint and efficiency during his tenure and we thank him for his contributions and leadership."
SunPower expects to implement a company-wide restructuring program in the fourth quarter to accelerate operating cost reduction and improve overall operating efficiency. The company currently expects this program to reduce operating expenses by as much as 10 percent in 2012, while growing the company. As a result of the expected restructuring program under consideration, the company believes it may incur a one-time, pre-tax charge of approximately $10 million which is not included in current 2011 GAAP guidance.
