Bermuda Firm Proposed Solyndra Rescue Plan
President Barack Obama’s administration considered a plan proposed by Bermuda’s Lazard Ltd. to save Solyndra LLC that would have left the US with as much as 40 percent equity and two seats on the solar energy company’s board, according to e-mails obtained by the Bloomberg financial news service.
The administration documents were sent yesterday to a Republican-led House Energy and Commerce Committee panel, which is investigating a $535 million federal loan guarantee to the California solar manufacturer that filed for bankruptcy in September.
The panel voted along party lines at a meeting today to subpoena internal White House communications on Solyndra.
While the administration has turned over more than 80,000 pages of communications, those documents are limited to messages between agencies involved in Solyndra’s financing and White House officials.
The newly released e-mails disclose that Bermuda’s Lazard Ltd. proposed the debt-to-equity rescue plan in August that was reviewed by senior officials in the White House and at the Energy Department. The administration rejected the plan, and Solyndra closed its doors a day later.
Lazard Limited is one of the top financial advisers on global mergers and acquisitions. Its businesses also encompass restructuring, capital raising and asset management. With main offices in London, New York and Paris, it operates in 39 cities in 24 countries across North America, Europe, Australia, Asia and Central and South America. Its headquarters are in Hamilton, Bermuda.
Solyndra’s closure would “likely result in little recovery to the DoE,” Lazard said in the documents. The department paid Lazard about $1 million for its advice on Solyndra, according to Damien LaVera, an Energy Department spokesman.
Private backers for the company, which made cylindrical thin-film panels, required new loan terms as a condition of additional investment, according to the restructuring plan proposed by Bermuda-based Lazard.
Solyndra “will need an infusion of cash immediately in order to remain viable,” according to a Lazard presentation attached to e-mails sent to officials on August 16 as supporting material before a briefing.
Deputy Energy Secretary Daniel Poneman, Heather Zichal, deputy assistant to the president for energy and climate change, and other officials planned a Sunday evening conference call for August 28 to discuss the Lazard proposal, according to an e-mail chain dated Aug. 27 and included in the documents.
The administration provided about 1,200 pages of communications to the energy committee lawmakers yesterday “as part of our ongoing efforts to cooperate with their investigation,” LaVera said in an e-mailed statement. “The record shows that the decisions related to this loan were made on the merits after extensive review.”
Republican Representatives Fred Upton of Michigan, who heads the Energy and Commerce Committee, and Cliff Stearns of Florida, who leads its oversight panel, said in a statement last month that “the paper trail released by the White House portrays a disturbingly close relationship between President Obama’s West Wing inner circle, campaign donors and wealthy investors that spawned the Solyndra mess.”
They have questioned whether support for Solyndra was shaped by Obama’s political ties to George Kaiser, an oil billionaire whose family foundation invested in the company. The foundation and White House spokesmen have denied Kaiser, a fundraiser for Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, lobbied for aid to Solyndra.
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