Maxeon responds to product detentions, falling stock price

Maxeon Solar Technologies — the Singapore-based company behind a proposed advanced manufacturing project in Albuquerque — is at risk of being delisted from the Nasdaq Stock Market due to consistently low stock values.

Meanwhile, the company had some of its products detained by a federal agency as it reviews whether Maxeon products comply with anti-forced labor provisions.

A Maxeon spokesperson said the company is cooperating with U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, which prevented the products from being imported.

"These were our first-ever detentions by CBP of modules imported from Mexico into the U.S., and the detentions are intended to review whether Maxeon's products comply with anti-forced labor provisions as set out in the (the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act)," Forrest Monroy, the spokesperson, said in an email. "CBP has explained that these are routine detentions not related to any concerns specific to Maxeon."

Maxeon and New Mexico officials in August 2023 announced the company was going to make a $1 billion investment to build a 1.9-million-square-foot manufacturing facility in Albuquerque's Mesa del Sol area. The facility will aim to change the landscape of domestic solar cell manufacturing in the U.S. by onshoring production, which was a key goal of the Inflation Reduction Act President Joe Biden signed into law in 2022.

The 3-gigawatt facility will be designed to produce the latest-generation photo voltaic-silicon cell technology and Maxeon's proprietary shingled-cell Performance Line solar modules, according to a news release from the company.

Construction was originally supposed to begin in early 2024 and the facility aimed to be online in 2025, according to the governor's office.

Monroy said the company plans to begin construction in the fourth quarter of this year and production will begin sometime in 2026. Maxeon currently has about half a dozen employees in Albuquerque who work remotely.

The Mesa del Sol manufacturing site is expected to receive public financing. Officials have approved for Maxeon to receive $20 million in Local Economic Development Act financing, including $18 million from the state and $2 million from the city of Albuquerque, said Mark Roper, the New Mexico Economic Development Department division director. Industrial Revenue Bonds have also been approved for the project in the coming decades.

The company hasn't received any public money to date, Roper said.

In the last year, Maxeon has seen a significant drop in its stock value, which was at around 8 cents per share on Thursday afternoon. The 52-week high was $12.72 per share. In February 2021, its stock was around $50 per share.

Maxeon in a news release earlier this month said it received a letter from Nasdaq saying that the exchange planned to delist the company from the Nasdaq Global Select Market after Maxeon stock had a closing bid price of 10 cents or less for 10 consecutive trading days.

Shareholders approved the consolidation of every 100 existing shares into one share of stock, which the company said will increase the share price, according to a Maxeon news release.

Earlier this year, Chinese manufacturer TCL Zhonghuan announced plans to invest around $197.5 million to increase its stake in Maxeon from 22.39% to at least 50.1%.