This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
US Taxpayer Faces $230 Million Loss As Spain's 'Solyndra' Files For Creditor Protection
"The future of the company seems very black," notes on trader as the bonds and stocks of Spanish renewbles form Abengoa lives up to its name and files for creditor protection, just as we warned was likely. With the stock crashing 70% to 28c and 4-month bonds trading at just 22c on the dollar, market participants face an almost total loss.. but, as we detailed previously, it is the American taxpayer - who thanks to Ex-Im Bank loans to keep this zombie alive - face losses of $230 million as Spain's Solyndra exposes another symptom of the Oligrachic ignorance of where the money comes from.
Restructring efforts of the past have failed, as Bloomberg reports, Abengoa SA’s bonds and stock tumbled to records after the embattled renewable-energy company said it was seeking preliminary protection from creditors following the breakdown of talks with a new investor.
Abengoa’s 500 million euros ($530 million) of bonds maturing in March fell as much as 51 cents on the euro to 12 cents on Wednesday, while its 550 million euros of bonds due February 2018 dropped as much as 32 cents to 9.8 cents, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Its B shares plunged as much as 69 percent to 28 euro cents.
Abengoa, which employs more than 24,000 people worldwide, has been seeking to reassure investors that it can generate enough cash to service its debt pile of about 8.9 billion euros of consolidated gross debt. The Seville-based company said earlier this month that Gonvarri Corporacion Financiera, a unit of industrial group Corporacion Gestamp, would become its biggest shareholder after agreeing to acquire a 28 percent stake by injecting new funds.
“The future of the company seems very black,” said Carlos Ortega, a trader at Beka Finance Sociedad de Valores SA. “It has a tremendous amount of debt which no bank wants to refinance and now even its partners are backing out.”
Except that, thanks to crony capitalism, US Taxpayers did...
In 2014, as FreeBeacon reports, the Spanish renewable energy company under investigation by at least two federal agencies unveiled a new biofuel production facility that received hundreds of millions of dollars in federal subsidies.
Former employees of the company have alleged that it routinely engages in violations of U.S. immigration, environmental, and workplace safety laws and uses taxpayer funds to hire foreign workers in violation of federal regulations.
The company received a $132.4 million loan guarantee and a $97 million grant to build a new biofuel plant Hugoton, Kansas. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback attended its ribbon-cutting ceremony on Friday.
The announcement of additional subsidies came even as U.S. Customs and Immigration Service and the Department of Labor conduct investigations into potential legal violations by the company.
Both agencies have policies against commenting on ongoing investigations.
In addition to direct taxpayer support for the company, Abengoa benefitted tremendously from federal mandates for biofuels, according to CEO Manuel Sanchez Ortega.
“This would have been simply impossible without the establishment of the Renewable Fuel Standard,” Ortega said, referring to a federal regulation that mandates the use of certain levels of bio energy in transportation fuels.
And now, less than one year later, the company seeks creditor protection, which would normally be shrugged off by an American public - meh, what do we care about the bankruptcy of some Spanish energy firm?
Well... combine political influence... US taxpayer subisides... and corruption... and maybe Americans should care... (as Free Beacon details)
Mike Alhalabi, a former senior lead mechanical engineer at Abengoa subsidiary Abener who worked on the Mojave facility, said the company routinely skipped right to international hiring, preferring to bring in workers from its native Spain.
It did so even for menial jobs, Alhalabi recalled.
“They [hired] people to move furniture around and they were all Spanish,” he said. “I mean, this is work that you can hire Americans to do. Why would you bring people from Spain to move furniture around?”
Potentially illegal hiring practices caught the eye of another employee, who said the company was well aware that it was violating U.S. immigration laws.
“What I came to realize, and it took me a while because I didn’t want to realize it, is that they understood. They knew the law. They didn’t care,” said Lydia Evanson, the former human resources director at an Abengoa subsidiary in Arizona.
“I really came to believe that they’re so politically connected that it’s just hubris and arrogance,” Evanson said.
Alhalabi also saw political connections at work. He noted the involvement of former vice president Al Gore, whose company, Generation Investment Management, bought a stake in Abengoa in 2007.
“Behind the scenes, what brought Abengoa to the United States, based on my research, [was] Al Gore,” Alhalabi said in an interview. “He promised to bring U.S. dollars to the company.”
Alhalabi also singled out Sen. Diane Feinstein (D., Calif.), saying she was part of Gore’s team working behind the scenes to support Abengoa’s activities in her home state.
Feinstein in 2010 asked then-Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to expedite an environmental review of one of its stimulus-backed solar plants, despite concerns that it could impact endangered species in the area.
The month after she sent a letter to Salazar making the request, Interior’s Fish and Wildlife Service signed off on the project.
Salazar attended Friday’s ribbon-cutting ceremony for Abengoa’s new biofuel facility.
The company’s political connections are emblematic of an industry that remains reliant on taxpayer subsidies, according to William Yeatman, a senior fellow specializing in energy policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
“It could not be more clear that this company could not survive without access to government favors from political friends,” Yeatman said, citing its reliance on the Renewable Fuels Standard and continued financial support from DOE.
“Alas, the same can be said for the green energy industry as a whole, which would fast wither and die absent a steady diet of taxpayer and ratepayer subsidies,” Yeatman said.
In addition to its DOE subsidies, Abengoa received $185 million in financing in 2012 and 2013 through the U.S. Export-Import bank as former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D) sat on the boards of both the federal agency and the company it was subsidizing.
Despite extensive federal support for the company, Alhalabi described a culture of disregard for workplace safety and environmental contamination. Concern over high costs has led to lackluster engineering work at the company’s Mojave facility that could result in an “environmental disaster,” he said.
Solyndra 2.0? Another one off? Or another symptom of the Oligrachic ignorance of where the money comes from...It appears US taxpayers can kiss that money goodbye...
Abengoa reported a nine-month loss this month. Deloitte, the auditor, said Abengoa’s losses, slumping shares and difficulty accessing financing could generate “significant doubts” over its ability to keep operating.
“The reaction in the market is huge,” said Felix Fischer, a credit analyst at independent research provider Lucror Analytics in Singapore. “A financial restructuring would be a very messy and lengthy process. There are so many different layers of different liabilities.”
»
- 420 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
the empire won't be distracted from dancing with the stars
Man, $230 million would buy me a lot of time in the south pacific sun, and two girls at the same time...
Only a $230 million loss? I call that a successful government investment.
I am sending out my Christmas checks...who do I make this one out to. I feel the need to rescue billionaires....does Buffet need another rescue?
Print, wipe, repeat.
The solution for this obvious theft of government funds is for the companies that stole the money pay it all back, along with people like Feinstein and Gore who got payoffs. When a family member continues collecting Social Security benefits paid to a parent who has died, the government demands repayment of the ill-acquired funds. But that policy only applies to little crooks, not thieves like Governor Brownback, Gore et al.
----
"For nearly three years, Social Security checks were deposited into the bank account of 85-year-old Ruth Craver, even though the Wyoming woman died in November, 2009.
By the time Social Security Administration agents discovered the mistake, more than $30,000 had been deposited – and spent, by her surviving son.
On Wednesday, Stephen Mark Craver was sentenced in U.S. District Court for theft of government funds. Judge Robert J. Jonker placed him on probation for three years and ordered Craver to pay back the $30,475.49 he collected since his mother's death."
Solar and wind power are to liberals like catnip is to cats.
And oil, coal, and nuclear are heroin to the right wingers.
Meanwhile, every house could be powered by solar, a tried and owned by oil corporation energy source, as well as war supporting and israel endorsing...
'Competition is sin".
-John D. Rockerfeller (aka Bauer)
All these "green" energy systems are not designed to turn non-fossil fuels into electricity, but to put taxpayer dollars into the pockets of the 1% who own these heavily subsidized companies.
SNAFU at it's finest......
It's only Federal Reserve Notes. Just throw that 230mm loss over there on the pile of other debts. Plus, its Thanksgiving. America ain't got no time to be trippin' on some failed company half way around the world. We gettin' ready for some FOOTBALL and TRYPTOPHAN baby!!!!
Oligarchs 20 trillion - taxpayer 0
the game has gotten away from us folks!
What's 230 million? 2 seconds of interest?
That eleventh marble is a bitch...
Based on an 8 hour work day, its about 37 minutes of QE.
JESUS FUCKING CHRIST will this absurdity ever end?
Nope.
This is the planet that the galactic governments dump their insane self lovers on aka narcissists....
And the ships aren't coming back to pick the masses up.
Some of us came to document the event, for later reviewing by an unbuased judge, not to be found in this 'jurisdiction'.
However, it seems the original project managers of operation "dipshit dump" didn't get the proper permit, and the locals have destroyed the planet.
Its a terrible mess.
Not so Thankfully, in the outer reaches of the solar system, large ships await to do a final mineral and resource 'requistion' when the silly humans nuke themselves to death.
What a surprise ...add this to the long list of Obama's environazi train wrecks.
So much for trying to balance my fucking checkbook.
I hope the Feinsteins's have a happy Thanksgiving.
Abengoa and Iberdrola are the same company...
Spain’s Iberdrola Gets U.S. Grants for Wind Projects (Update3)
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aElP..Gdw9jo
Sept. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Iberdrola SA, a Spanish company, will get most of the more than $500 million in economic recovery funds the Obama administration said today it is distributing to U.S. renewable-energy projects.
Bilbao, Spain-based Iberdrola will get $236 million for wind farms in Texas, Oregon and Minnesota and an additional $59 million for a Pennsylvania wind project, U.S. officials said.
Twelve projects in total will get funds, with 59 percent of the money going to Iberdrola’s Penascal project in Texas, the Hay Canyon and Pebble Springs wind farms in Oregon, Locust Ridge II in Pennsylvania and the Morraine II wind farm in Minnesota.
The money is part of President Barack Obama’s economic recovery plan. The entire plan contains about $3 billion that will be given in lieu of tax credits to support about 5,000 biomass, solar, wind and other types of renewable energy production facilities.
“This renewable energy program will spur the manufacture and development of clean energy in urban and rural America,” Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said in a written statement.
Obama has set a goal of doubling renewable energy production in three years. He also has said that development of cleaner energy sources would create jobs.
“We are delighted and we are right now putting the stimulus money to use,” said Jan Johnson, a U.S. spokeswoman for Iberdrola.
She said the company plans to spend $6 billion over four years on renewable energy projects in places such as Arizona, Texas, Illinois, North Dakota and Oregon.
84 Turbines
The Penascal wind farm, near Sarita, Texas, the biggest project covered by the grants, is to receive $114 million. It began operating in April, using 84 turbines supplied by Japan’sMitsubishi Corp., and produces 202 megawatts, or enough to power 70,000 South Texas homes, according to an April statement by the company.
The grants will help develop 840 megawatts of capacity, or about 3 percent of total U.S. wind power, said Matt Rogers, an adviser at the Energy Department. Except for $2.7 million of the grants that went to solar projects, all the $502.6 million in grants support wind technologies.
http://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/first-wind-energy-systems-an...
First Wind Energy Systems and First Wind Energy LLC and “First Wind” were sold to Caliber Energy that is Navajo Wind noticed in multiple press releases on July 14, 2009. PINKSHEETS: CLBN
The: “US Securities and Exchange Commission’s” Operation Shell-Expel” 2/14 expelled Caliber. Caliber (Navajo) had announced a new office in Xinjiang China, and represented company headquarters in Atlanta, CA, and Atlanta, Georgia, and in Beverly Hills. Navajo said it had accepted delivery of 53 wind turbines for $65 million for a project in China. While the company, according to the SEC, was a rented only mailbox and outgoing only line.
February 2014: “Operation Shell-Expel” included Caliber and Calibre among 254 shell companies suspended by the SEC crack down on financial fraud. In an SEC described “extremely rare” case SEC required suspended stocks to be relisted only if the company could demonstrate it is operational
http://www.sec.gov/litigation/complaints/2011/comp22125.pdf
The 255 SEC suspended include Caliber Energy and Calibre Energy, the list:
http://www.sec.gov/litigation/suspensions/2014/34-71465.pdf
Note that First Wind Holdings Inc. [WIND] Ticker or Trading Symbol beneficial ownership on 10/27/2010 Reporting Person is Patrick Wood with Power of Attorney for First Wind Holdings Inc. Source: SEC (10K)
Note that Xinjiang, China is Goldwind and Caliber (Navajo) Energy corporate headquarters. Caliber and First Wind, First Wind Energy LLC, and First Wind Energy Systems were sold to Caliber Energy that is Navajo Wind building wind projects in China.
========= NOTE========
(First Wind is now Sun Edison) and Note Xinjiang China, this is where a lot of the ISIS folk are giving the Chinese Gov a headache. Also keep on mind all those chemical plants that keep blowing up. First Wind also operates as UPC in the MENA region.
=====
http://seekingalpha.com/article/3714356-sunedisons-231m-indian-asset-sal...
Hope a Trump president would be in for claw-backs. Track down the flow of money and snap it back from the rich fatcat on the tropical island. A new department of justice to replace the Obama department of just-us.
"Most transparent administration of all time" allowed Bill Richardson to cash in. Heckuva job!
Another example of Obama's stimulus program creating NO jobs....
It's OK as long as you put on more sporting events and keeping up with the Kardashians.
Americans are for the most part distracted.
But, but, but the dot gov website says:
http://www.exim.gov/about
When you put it that way, it sounds like such a good idea...
I supplied a few thousand tons of steel to Abengoa's largest solar project. They are the most incompetent bunch of fools ever. Furthermore, they brought their whole workforce from spain to to all the engineering work, many of which had experience in solar. None of them spoke a lick of english, which was great for general synergy.
In my experience, 90% of projects use hot dip galvanized steel to protect against soil corrosion. They just would not accept this, even after receiving advice from experienced engineers. They insisted we just go to a much heavier pile size that would take longer to corrode, instead of protecting it. So taxpayers also ended up paying for I dunno ~70% more steel than needed.
Abengoa like Fannie Mae was a "tool for debt"
$230,000,000. LOL that won't even cover the vig.
BTW Abengoa funded projects in South Africa and Venezuela too, all money losers and guaranteed by US taxpayers.
it actually has $3 Billion in subsidies and loan guarantees.
Tyler, whoever your ghostwriter is, you need to tell him/her to use spell-check. There are 5 typos in the first few lines of the article.