Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Elon Musk's SolarCity Sets IPO Pricing Range

Southern California entrepreneur Elon Musk has huge success this year, in (literally) getting commercial spaceflight firm SpaceX--based in Hawthorne--off the ground and into space, with a hugely successful set of flights to the International Space Station (ISS). However, it looks like Musk is not just happy with those successes, but is hoping to score another win before the end of the year: the IPO of one of his other companies--solar power financing firm SolarCity. SolarCity said Tuesday in a filing with the SEC that it is estimating its initial IPO price per share at between $13.00 and $15.00. The filing gives a strong indication that the firm is looking to meet a reported deadline of the end of a year for a public offering, on the NASDAQ Global Market. Musk's last IPO success was electric car maker Tesla Motors. Musk owns 30.6 percent of SolarCity before its IPO. SolarCity offers up power purchase agreements (PPAs), financing arrangements which pay the upfront cost of installing solar power for both residential and commercial customers, in exchange for those customers agreeing to pay a set rate for the solar power generated from those solar panels. Musk splits his time between Southern California and SpaceX, and his ventures in Silicon Valley.