limited suneq industry renewable energy founded 1959 headquarters maryland heights missouri belmont california key people john s. dubel chief executive officer and chief restructuring officer products polysilicon solar wafers photovoltaic plants solar modules solar energy revenue us 2.484 billion 2014 1 operating income us 536 million 2014 1 number of employees 7 300 2014 1 website www.sunedison.com sunedison inc. is a global renewable energy company headquartered in the u.s. in addition to developing building owning and operating solar power plants and wind energy plants it also manufactures high purity polysilicon monocrystalline silicon ingots silicon wafers solar modules solar energy systems and solar module racking systems . originally a silicon wafer manufacturer established in 1959 as the monsanto electronic materials company a former business unit of monsanto company monsanto sold the company in 1989 . prior to may 30 2013 the company was known as memc electronic materials ; the name change to sunedison reflects the company s focus on solar energy . 2 sunedison s corporate headquarters are in maryland heights missouri and the company s operational and solar headquarters are in belmont california with offices throughout the world . established in the early stages of the semiconductor electronics industry in 1959 memc was for the next half century a major and pioneering manufacturer of silicon wafers the most basic element of semiconductor chip manufacturing . the company entered the solar market in a major way beginning in 2006 with longterm contracts to manufacture and sell solar wafers to several large asian solar energy companies . contracts with other solar energy companies followed as did joint venture projects on solar power plants . with the acquisition of the large successful and pioneering solar energy systems company sunedison llc in late 2009 and the smaller solar power companies axio and fotowatio in 2011 memc focused increasingly on the burgeoning solar energy industry to offset the cyclical downturns in the semiconductor market . the company now develops finances and maintains solar power systems and plants for a widespread commercial public sector and power plant customer base and its name change in 2013 to sunedison inc. reflects its main focus . it is one of the leading solar power companies worldwide and with its acquisition of wind energy company first wind in 2014 sunedison is the leading renewable energy development company in the world . 3 sunedison s subsidiaries terraform power and terraform global own and operate renewable energy projects around the globe . 4 in 2015 sunedison sold off its subsidiary sunedison semiconductor which manufactures silicon wafers for the electronics industry . the divestiture marked the completion of sunedison inc. s transition from a semiconductor wafer company to a dedicated renewable energy corporation . following years of major expansion and the announcement of the intent which eventually fell through to acquire the residential rooftop solar company vivint solar in 2015 sunedison s stock plummeted and its more than 11 billion in debt caused it to file for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on april 21 2016 . 5 6 contents 1 history 1.1 foundation 1.2 expansion 1.3 change of ownership 1.4 solar market entry 1.5 acquisition of sunedison 1.6 name change 1.7 bankruptcy 2 sunedison companies 3 references 4 notes 5 external links history edit foundation edit the establishment of monsanto electronic materials company memc a silicon wafer manufacturing division to serve the emerging electronics industry was announced on august 6 1959 as an arm of the u.s. based multinational corporation monsanto . 7 in february 1960 memc started production of 19mm silicon ingots at its location in st. peters missouri 30 miles west of monsanto s headquarters in st. louis . 8 as one of the first companies to produce semiconductor wafers memc was a pioneer in the field and some of its innovations became industry standards into the 21st century . 9 memc used the czochralski process cz process of silicon crystal production 10 and developed the chemical mechanical polishing cmp process of wafer finishing . 9 11 12 in 1966 memc installed its first reactors for the production of epitaxial wafers 13 14 and developed zero dislocation crystal growing which made large diameter silicon crystals possible . 9 15 expansion edit in the early 1970s memc opened a production plant in kuala lumpur malaysia and sent its st. peters produced 2.25 inch ingots there for slicing and polishing . 9 16 in 1979 memc became the first company to manufacture 125mm 5 inch wafers ; in 1981 the first to produce 150mm 6 inch wafers ; and in partnership with ibm in 1984 the first to produce 200mm 8 inch wafers . 14 17 18 19 in 1986 memc opened its production and r & d facility in utsunomiya japan to serve the japanese semiconductor market becoming the first non japanese wafer maker with manufacturing and research facilities in japan . 20 21 change of ownership edit memc experienced heavy price pressure from japanese competition during the mid 1980s . 9 despite its success and increasing revenues memc had to account for losses for a few years leading to the decision of monsanto which was refocusing on chemicals agriculture and biotechnology products to sell the electronic materials division . 9 22 23 in 1989 the german company h ls ag the chemicals arm of the german conglomerate veba acquired monsanto electronic materials and combined it with h ls previous acquisition dynamite nobel silicon dns to form memc electronic materials . 9 24 25 26 dns already operated silicon wafer plants in merano and novara italy and integrated them within the new memc electronic materials . 27 h ls supported the new subsidiary with 50 million for research and development and for manufacturing expansion . 9 28 in 1991 memc developed the first process using granular polysilicon which provided cost and productivity advantages over chunk polysilicon . 9 29 four years later memc acquired albemarle corporation s granular polysilicon production facility in pasadena texas which had been producing granular polysilicon since 1987 . 9 30 memc s stock began trading on the new york stock exchange with an initial public offering in 1995 . 9 14 the ipo raised over 400 million which went to finance an aggressive growth plan and repay some of the debt to its parent company and h ls veba retained a majority interest in the company . 9 26 31 the cyclical downturn in the semiconductor business in the late 1990s hit memc hard . 9 26 32 in 1998 the company reported a loss of 316 million on revenues of 759 million . 9 in june 2000 veba ag still holding 72 % of memc was merged with viag to form the new e.on ag . 9 33 e.on wanted to focus on its core business of electric utilities and assigned merrill lynch to sell memc . 9 33 34 merrill was unable to find a buyer until memc announced that it was on the verge of illiquidity in the middle of 2001 . 35 finally in october 2001 e.on was able to agree on a deal with the private equity company texas pacific group tpg which purchased e.on s stake in memc for a symbolic dollar and offered memc 150 million in credit lines . 34 35 36 37 tpg restructured memc s debt increased its stake in the company to 90 % and cut one third of its workforce . 9 38 39 memc returned to profitability following the appointment of nabeel gareeb who was ceo of memc from april 2002 to november 2008 . 9 38 40 41 memc s market share rose again and by 2003 it reported positive earning figures . 38 42 memc s sales topped 1 billion in 2004 and it was number three in market share . 9 43 through a secondary offering tpg reduced its share of memc in 2005 to 34 % and by the end of 2007 to zero . 38 43 solar market entry edit sunedison solar testing facility in 2006 memc announced its large scale entry into the burgeoning solar wafer market via longterm agreements to supply china based suntech power and taiwan based gintech energy with solar grade silicon wafers . 44 45 46 similar contracts followed with germany based conergy in 2007 38 and taiwan based tainergy tech in 2008 . 47 the company cultivated short term solar wafer customers as well . 38 48 by 2007 memc held approximately 14 % of the solar wafer market . 18 having returned memc to a foundation of profitability and having helped it enter the solar market ceo nabeel gareeb resigned in november 2008 . 40 49 ahmad chatila was appointed president and ceo in february 2009 . 50 in july 2009 memc and q cells which specialized in construction and operation of photovoltaic plants formed a joint venture to build strasskirchen solar park a 50 mw photovoltaic plant in bavaria germany with memc supplying the solar wafers and q cells converting them into solar cells . 51 52 both partners invested 100 million each in return for a 50 % each ownership of the project . 51 as planned the plant was sold to an investment firm nordcapital after operations started at the beginning of 2010 . 53 acquisition of sunedison edit in november 2009 memc acquired the privately owned company sunedison llc north america s largest solar energy services provider . 54 founded by jigar shah 55 sunedison had been developing financing building operating and monitoring large scale photovoltaic plants for commercial customers including many national retail outlets government agencies and utilities since 2003 . 56 57 58 the company had pioneered solar as a service and the solar power purchase agreement ppa for no money down customer financing . 55 59 60 with the acquisition of sunedison memc became a developer of solar power projects and north america s largest solar energy services provider . 61 ceo ahmad chatila announced that memc will now participate in the actual development of solar power plants and commercialization of clean energy in addition to supplying the solar and semiconductor industries with our traditional silicon wafer products . 62 sunedison was purchased for 200 million 70 % in cash and 30 % in memc stock plus retention payments transaction expenses and the assumption of net debt . 54 61 63 following its acquisition of sunedison memc also began to focus on developing and acquiring advanced technologies used in the production of low cost high performance solar panels . it acquired the california based solar tech company solaicx in mid 2010 . 64 the acquisition included solaicx s high volume proprietary continuous crystal growth manufacturing technology which produces low cost monocrystalline silicon ingots for high efficiency solar cells . 65 66 67 68 in february 2011 samsung fine chemicals and memc announced a 50 50 joint venture to build a polysilicon production plant in ulsan south korea . 69 the plant was to have an initial capacity of 10 000 metric tons per annum . 69 as of late 2014 the joint venture called smp is 85 % owned by sunedison 50 % by sunedison inc. and 35 % by sunedison semiconductor 70 and 15 % by samsung and the plant has a capacity of 13 500 metric tons per annum . 71 72 73 by october 2014 the plant began producing the world s first high pressure fluidized bed reactor hp fbr polysilicon enabling sizeable reductions in the cost of solar energy . 74 75 76 in 2011 memc also extended its solar energy business . in june 2011 it acquired another north american solar power project developer axio power . 77 78 79 axio power founded in 2007 developed financed and constructed large scale solar projects and had more than 500 mw of utility scale photovoltaic power projects in canada and the western u.s. 77 78 in july 2011 memc established a joint venture with korea based jusung engineering to combine its