Three Clean Energy Stocks That Won’t Keep You Up At Night

Tom Konrad CFA If you want to green your portfolio, but the wild swings of First Solar (NASD:FSLR), Tesla (NASD:TSLA), SolarCity (NASD:SCTY), and even clean energy ETFs like Powershares Wilderhill Clean Energy (NYSE:PBW) are a bit too much to let you sleep at night, you’re not alone. A reader recently suggested I write about more green stocks like Waste Management (NYSE:WM), which readers can own and not worry about too much.  I thought it was an excellent suggestion; I’ve recently been writing much more about much more exciting or terrifying stocks, because there is simply a lot more...

A Clean Energy REIT: Hannon Armstrong Sustainable Infrastructure

Tom Konrad CFA On April 18th, Hannon Armstrong Sustainable Infrastructure Capital (NYSE:HASI) IPOed on the New York Stock Exchange.  HASI is one of only two publicly traded Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) dedicated to sustainable infrastructure.   The other such sustainable REIT is Power REIT (NYSE:PW), which I have written about extensively.  PW is both illiquid and involved in significant litigation, two factors which may put off the conservative investors who gravitate towards REITs.  In December, Power REIT purchased the land...

Four Clean Green Dividends

by Debra Fiakas CFA The recent pullback in stock prices in the U.S. equity market has opened the door to some interesting dividend yields.  Investors with a taste for environmentally-friendly businesses have some particularly interesting alternatives that can pump up the purse as well as protect Mother Earth. AES Corporation (AES:  NYSE) is a world-class power generator from mixed portfolio of conventional and renewable power sources.  About 28% of its 29,352 megawatts of generation capacity is from renewable fuel sources, including hydro, biomass, solar and wind, and another 33% from plants using natural gas.  The balance of...

What Yieldco Managers Are Saying About The Market Meltdown

by Tom Konrad Ph.D., CFA Note: This article was first published on GreenTechMedia on Noveber 27th. In the last six months, YieldCos have fallen from stock market darlings to pariahs.  YieldCos are companies that buy clean energy projects such as solar and wind farms, and use the majority of free cash flow from these projects to pay dividends to investors. Many are listed subsidiaries or carve-outs of large developers of clean energy projects. Last year, investors repeatedly punished leading solar developers and manufacturer First Solar and SunPower for their reluctance to launch YieldCos. When...

Northland Power’s Solar-Backed Bond

New Canadian Climate bond: Northland Power releases a pretty big ABS - CA$232m (US$206m) - backed by solar projects with proceeds for renewables. 18-year tenor, 4.397% coupon, BBB. Securitisation key future area for green bonds.

Hannon Armstrong’s Strong Q2 Keeps It In My Top Picks

By Jeff Siegel Hannon Armstrong (NYSE:HASI), one of my top picks for 2014, just made me very happy. Yesterday, the company announced its Q2 Core Earnings of $4.7 million or $0.22 per share. On a GAAP basis, the Company recorded net income of $2.9 million. Here are some other highlights. . . Raised approximately $70 million in April, 2014 in a follow-on offering. Increased the flexibility and expanded the capacity of its existing credit facility by $200 million. Completed more than $200 million worth of transactions, including the acquisition of a $107 million portfolio of land...

Five Pioneers Mining the Sun for Income

by Jared Wiedmeyer For the past few years, solar industry stakeholders have imagined a future where the general public has the ability to invest in pure-play renewable energy real estate investment trusts (REITs) that finance and construct both utility-scale and distributed photovoltaic (PV) projects in the United States. While these stakeholders wait for this reality to come to fruition, existing REITs already have several options to own or develop solar projects that still allow them to comply with the IRS's asset and income tests.  This past May, Chadbourne & Park's Kelly Kogan and Scott Bank moderated a roundtable with...

Solar Bonds For Small Investors

By Beate Sonerud SolarCity (NASD:SCTY) is issuing US$200m of asset-linked retail bonds, with maturities ranging from 1-7 years and interest rates from 2-4%. Wells Fargo is the banking partner. While the bonds are registered,SolarCity expects the bonds to be buy and hold, and not traded in the secondary markets. The bond is issued for small-scale investors, with investment starting at US$1000, giving this bond issuance a crowdfunding aspect. Choosing such a different structure allows SolarCity to diversify their investor base – the company stresses that small-scale investors are a complement, not substitute, for large-scale institutional investors. While...

Fifteen Clean Energy Yield Cos: Company Structure

Tom Konrad CFA In the first article of this survey of yield cos, I looked at the possible reasons for the seemingly endless enthusiasm for US-listed clean energy yield cos.  Here, I'll take a look at how these yield cos are constructed, and why investors should prefer one structure over another. Who's Your Daddy? Most yield cos have been created by clean energy project developers in order to create a ready, low-cost buyer for those projects.  With the recent string of very successful IPOs, the capital available for such projects may prove...

Green Bonds: 2015 Year End Review

by the Climate Bonds Team Another successful year for the green bond market with 2015 issuance hitting $41.8bn making it the biggest year ever for green bonds. Achieving scale hasn’t been the only reason to celebrate the green bond market at the year-end; the real success is the geographical spread of green bonds across the world. Green bond markets are popping up all across the world, in Brazil, China, Estonia, Mexico and India… just to name a few! Green bond market momentum continues to build after a successful COP in Paris. ...

How Much Can YieldCo Dividends Grow?

Tom Konrad CFA U.S.-listed YieldCos seem to offer the best of two worlds: high income from dividends, combined with high dividend per share growth. YieldCos are listed companies that own clean energy assets, and like the real estate investment trusts (REITs) and master limited partnerships (MLPs) they are modeled after, they return almost all the income from their investments to their shareholders in the form of dividends. Unlike REITs and MLPs, however, U.S.-listed YieldCos have management targets to deliver double-digit per-share dividend growth. YieldCos shown are NRG Yield (NYLD), Abengoa Yield (ABY), TerraForm Power...

Fifteen Clean Energy Yield Cos: Where’s The Yield?

Tom Konrad CFA  In the first article of this survey of yield cos, I noted that many of the recent yield co IPOs have risen so far as to "lend the very term "yield co" a hint of irony" because rising stock prices are accompanied by falling annual dividend yields. Yield Co Worries Because yield cos invest in clean energy infrastructure such as wind farms and solar facilities, conservative income investors may worry about the durability of the technology.  Will solar panels still be producing power twenty...

Convertible Solar Bonds: Trina, SunPower Stoke Fire; Ascent Descends

by Sean Kidney Trina’s $150m 3.5% 5yr convertible solar bond In June Chinese solar manufacturer Trina announced the private placement of $150m of 5 year, 3.5% convertible bonds to “institutional investors” (no details provided). Trina weren’t clear how they would use the proceeds, but they are planning to build 400-500MW of solar plants over the rest of this year. Book-runners were Deutsche Bank, Barclays, J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs (Asia), with co-manager HSBC. SunPower issues $400m 7yr 0.875% (!) convertible solar bond That same month SunPower announced a private placement of $400 million, 7 year, 0.875% senior convertible bonds. What...

Five Green Dividend Stocks to Watch

Tom Konrad CFA The Perfect Stock My ideal stock is: Green (in that the company is helping to make the economy more sustainable) Pays a good dividend (in the current low-interest rate environment, I consider 4% to be “good”) Has earnings and free cash flow large enough to easily sustain the dividend, and Has low debt, leading to low earnings and cash flow volatility. I like such stocks because I can buy them, and pretty much ignore them.  This leaves me time to research more speculative green stocks, while still knowing that much of my portfolio is producing...

YieldCo Bubble: The Aftermath

Readers may be interested in listening to this podcast. Where Stephen Lacey and Shayle Kann of GreenTechMedia speak with me about the current YieldCo landscape. Follow this link to The Interchange Podcast. -Tom Konrad, Editor

Climate Bonds 2016 Highlights

by the Climate Bonds Team A record year with green bond issuance of USD 81bn, up 92% on 2015 figures The Trends A maturing of the green bonds market, diversification across issuers, products and use of proceeds are the main trends identified in our Green Bonds Highlights 2016 summary. The Big Numbers 92% – growth on 2015 making 2016 the most prolific year to date USD 11.8bn – November issuance, the largest month on record 24 – number of countries with green bond issuers 27% – proportion of Chinese issuers 241 – number of labelled green bonds issued (median size USD133.7m) >90 – number of new issuers >50 – number...
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