First Solar Narrows Its Focus
First Solar (NASDAQ: FSLR) is narrowing its focus to two main businesses: solar panel manufacturing and project development. It's exiting the engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) business, which served third party developers with the tools needed to get a solar farm off the ground. This comes a little over a year after the company sold its asset ownership yieldco, 8point3 Energy Partners, so First Solar is reducing vertical integration.
The strategic change may not seem significant on the surface, but it aims to make First Solar more efficient in its two remaining operating businesses. Third-party companies that specialize in engineering, tracker design, and construction are already doing EPC work for developers, so the business is specializing -- and so is First Solar.
Image source: First Solar.
Source Fool.com
