Suzlon’s US subsidiary has filed for voluntary liquidation in an Illinois bankruptcy court due to continued financial stress during the coronavirus pandemic.
Its parent company does not believe the decision will have any direct or material impact on Suzlon Energy.
Suzlon Wind Energy Corporation, USA (Sweco) – a subsidiary of Suzlon Energy Ltd – filed for voluntary liquidation in the United States Bankruptcy Court of the Northern District of Illinois.
Under Chapter 7 of the US's bankruptcy code, an administrator gathers and sells Sweco’s nonexempt assets and then uses the proceeds to pay its creditors.
Suzlon has nearly 3GW of wind turbines installed in the US, according to Windpower Intelligence, the research and data division of Windpower Monthly.
However, none of its turbines have been installed in the US since 2011.
Indian parent
Meanwhile, parent company Suzlon narrowed its net loss in both the full financial year (1 April 31 to March) and in the fourth quarter.
It posted a net loss of INR 7.01 billion ($94.5 million) in the full financial year, compared with INR 26.92 billion one year earlier. The manufacturer also recorded a net loss of INR 542.5 million in the fourth quarter, compared with INR 8.34 billion one year earlier.
CFO Ashwani Kumar noted that this was Suzlon’s first year of operations after it restructured its debt. It had teetered on the brink of insolvency for years beforehand.
Kumar added: “While our installations remained low, our strategic imperatives for the year were restarting our manufacturing facilities, ensuring continuation of our operations and maintenance service without interruptions and fulfilling the obligations of our debt restructuring.
“However, exponential increase in commodity prices like those of steel has impacted our profitability significantly in India.”
Suzlon did not disclose how much capacity it installed in the last financial year.
At the end of March 2021, Suzlon had a firm order book of 817.1MW, which it aims to install this coming year. Most of this (632.1MW) was accumulated through India's central government auctions, while the remainder came from state auctions (71.4MW) and corporate customers (113.6MW).
It values this order book at INR 47.15 billion.
Earlier this month, Suzlon publicly announced a firm turbine order for the first time since December 2018: a 252MW turbine purchase agreement with CLP India for a wind farm in Gujarat, India.
