Q4 2025 Sunpower Corp Earnings Call

January 20, 2026

Speaker #1: Good morning. My name is Sioban Hickie. I'm VP of IR, and I would like to welcome everyone to SunPower's fourth-quarter earnings call. I will review a few housekeeping items before turning the call over to our CEO, Dr. TJ Rodgers.

Siobhan Hickie: Good morning. My name is Siobhan Hickie. I am VP of IR, and I would like to welcome everyone to SunPower's fourth quarter earnings call. I will take a few, I will review a few housekeeping items before turning the call over to our CEO, Dr. T.J. Rodgers. This call is being recorded, and a replay will be available within the events section of SunPower's investor relations website. Please note that today's presentation may contain projections and other forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ from those expressed or implied in our statements. Also, on today's call, we may discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of any differences between those non-GAAP financial measures and the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures is available within our press release.

Speaker #1: This call is being recorded, and a replay will be available within the Events section of SunPower's Investor Relations website. Please note that today's presentation may contain projections and other forward-looking statements.

Speaker #1: These statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ from those expressed or implied in our statements.

Speaker #1: Also, on today's call, we may discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of any differences between those non-GAAP financial measures and the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures is available within our press release.

Lastly, we will hold a question-and-answer session after the end of formal remarks today. For those watching via the webcast, you may submit a written question at any time via the submission box located on the right-hand side of your screen.

Q4 2025 Sunpower Corp Earnings Call

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Q4 2025 Sunpower Corp Earnings Call

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Tuesday, January 20th, 2026 at 6:00 PM

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T.J. Rodgers: So this wing, if you looked at it, you can look right through it, and you see the struts and clear plastic on one side and the solar panels on the other side, meaning all the light coming from down here can come in the bottom of the wing and add power. And that's what's called bifacial. That is, the cells accept energy from either side. I'll talk about that later. Dan McCranie, I introduced to you, very short introduction. He's been on 10 NASDAQ boards. That's what he did. After he left Cypress Semiconductor, he ran VP of marketing sales. And he was the chairman of both halves of Motorola when they split up into Freescale and ON. And he was on the Cypress board as well. He's also run SEEQ Technology, which was a spinout of Intel in non-volatile memories. Will Anderson is on the far side.

So this wing, if you looked at it, you can look right through it, and you see the struts and clear plastic on one side and the solar panels on the other side, meaning all the light coming from down here can come in the bottom of the wing and add power. And that's what's called bifacial. That is, the cells accept energy from either side. I'll talk about that later. Dan McCranie, I introduced to you, very short introduction. He's been on 10 NASDAQ boards. That's what he did. After he left Cypress Semiconductor, he ran VP of marketing sales. And he was the chairman of both halves of Motorola when they split up into Freescale and ON. And he was on the Cypress board as well. He's also run SEEQ Technology, which was a spinout of Intel in non-volatile memories. Will Anderson is on the far side.

T.J. Rodgers: He's MIT, Stanford MBA credentialed guy. He's been on the SunPower board since 2010. And he was actually the founder and CEO of Complete Solar, the company which acquired SunPower under the SunPower name. Now he's on our board. And he's a glutton for punishment. He's got another startup called Same-Day Solar, and he's learning how to do financing. So if that works out, that may be a way for us to get into that business, which we're not in right now. Okay. I showed you the slide before, and I'm showing it again because I think it's cool. This is a picture of the Helios flying at 80,000 feet. Curve of the Earth clearly above the atmosphere, unbridled sun coming right in. Of course, that means more energy. And I did a little engineering work since last time you saw this.

T.J. Rodgers: At 80,000 feet, atmospheric pressure is down to 0.4 pounds per square inch from 14.7 PSI at sea level. And okay, what does that mean? Well, here, obviously, you can't breathe, but there's more than that. The boiling point of water at sea level is 212 degrees Fahrenheit, and the boiling point of water at that pressure is 59 degrees Fahrenheit. Said another way, if your body's at 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, your body temperature is enough to boil your blood. Hence, if you fly in one of these airplanes, you have to wear a spacesuit. And this is my favorite of all the pictures. You can see completely sealed up oxygen. They'll run 4.7 pounds of oxygen, which is partial pressure that you get on Earth. And I really like this one. And this airplane can stay up forever because it has batteries in it.

At 80,000 feet, atmospheric pressure is down to 0.4 pounds per square inch from 14.7 PSI at sea level. And okay, what does that mean? Well, here, obviously, you can't breathe, but there's more than that. The boiling point of water at sea level is 212 degrees Fahrenheit, and the boiling point of water at that pressure is 59 degrees Fahrenheit. Said another way, if your body's at 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, your body temperature is enough to boil your blood. Hence, if you fly in one of these airplanes, you have to wear a spacesuit. And this is my favorite of all the pictures. You can see completely sealed up oxygen. They'll run 4.7 pounds of oxygen, which is partial pressure that you get on Earth. And I really like this one. And this airplane can stay up forever because it has batteries in it.

T.J. Rodgers: This is a report we put out early this morning. Record financials. I'll talk about that. We have two acquisitions I'll mention. We just signed a $55 million equity line of credit. I'll go through this in detail on the next page. The main points are our revenue set a record of $88.5 million, up from $70 million last quarter. The main thing is that we have two new acquisitions, Sunder, which contributed a full quarter of revenue, and Ambia, a partial quarter. Our operating income for the new SunPower is a record of $3.5 million. That's only 4% of revenue. Our target is to get the operating income to 10%. Our ending cash balance was $9.3 million, up from $5.1 million in the prior quarter. I already mentioned this, but we increased our equity line of credit with White Lion Capital.

This is a report we put out early this morning. Record financials. I'll talk about that. We have two acquisitions I'll mention. We just signed a $55 million equity line of credit. I'll go through this in detail on the next page. The main points are our revenue set a record of $88.5 million, up from $70 million last quarter. The main thing is that we have two new acquisitions, Sunder, which contributed a full quarter of revenue, and Ambia, a partial quarter. Our operating income for the new SunPower is a record of $3.5 million. That's only 4% of revenue. Our target is to get the operating income to 10%. Our ending cash balance was $9.3 million, up from $5.1 million in the prior quarter. I already mentioned this, but we increased our equity line of credit with White Lion Capital.

T.J. Rodgers: That's our vendor in Southern California to $55 million on 11 January. It's now signed, and the shareholders have to approve it because it's an equity transaction. We've got a shareholder meeting coming up. A little bit of details. These are abbreviated preliminary financials. I don't expect them to change a lot, but I've limited to the key numbers that investors want to see based on my experience. So on the Non-GAAP side over here, we jumped 26 quarter-on-quarter revenue to $88.5 million. On the gross margin, we had exceptional gross margin because we cleaned up some old backlog that we bought from SunPower. And the reason I put base 38% is to say that's our normal fall-through gross margin. I urge you not to change models and put in some giant numbers which are unmakeable in the long haul.

That's our vendor in Southern California to $55 million on 11 January. It's now signed, and the shareholders have to approve it because it's an equity transaction. We've got a shareholder meeting coming up. A little bit of details. These are abbreviated preliminary financials. I don't expect them to change a lot, but I've limited to the key numbers that investors want to see based on my experience. So on the Non-GAAP side over here, we jumped 26 quarter-on-quarter revenue to $88.5 million. On the gross margin, we had exceptional gross margin because we cleaned up some old backlog that we bought from SunPower. And the reason I put base 38% is to say that's our normal fall-through gross margin. I urge you not to change models and put in some giant numbers which are unmakeable in the long haul.

T.J. Rodgers: Then I'll point out that our OPEX went up only 8.5% quarter-on-quarter. By the way, we're working on that. That can get better yet. That left us with a record profit of $3.545 million, up from $2 million last quarter. We also added $4.3 million in cash. This did not include any money from the ELOC I mentioned. This was the "natural quarter" that we had. This is a graph of our operating income. So it shows time before acquisition, time after acquisition, $0 here, massive loss for the three components of what now calls SunPower, one quarter of loss, and then now four quarters of profit, including a record profit this quarter. We came out of the, this is a revenue sort of a footnote. We came out of SunPower acquisition with about $80 million a quarter in revenue, $320 million run rate.

Then I'll point out that our OPEX went up only 8.5% quarter-on-quarter. By the way, we're working on that. That can get better yet. That left us with a record profit of $3.545 million, up from $2 million last quarter. We also added $4.3 million in cash. This did not include any money from the ELOC I mentioned. This was the "natural quarter" that we had. This is a graph of our operating income. So it shows time before acquisition, time after acquisition, $0 here, massive loss for the three components of what now calls SunPower, one quarter of loss, and then now four quarters of profit, including a record profit this quarter. We came out of the, this is a revenue sort of a footnote. We came out of SunPower acquisition with about $80 million a quarter in revenue, $320 million run rate.

T.J. Rodgers: So this will still be our second-best quarter ever, even in the uncertain, it's a perfect storm quarter of Q1 2026. Okay, it was our fourth consecutive profitable quarter. So our whole year was profitable. That comes off of four consecutive years that the prior SunPower, a different company, did not make money. Our Q4 2025 revenue and operating income were both records. Our 2025 revenue totaled $308.8 million. So we managed to hold the revenue and not lose it. There are factors that can cause you to lose revenue in our business. I'll talk about that later. With a profit. And that included a loss of this profit of $1.1 million in bad debt reserve we took last quarter. Our Q1 2026 revenue is expected to be $84 million, and I say it's highly uncertain. I'm pretty sure of the 84, but I put some slack in the writing.

So this will still be our second-best quarter ever, even in the uncertain, it's a perfect storm quarter of Q1 2026. Okay, it was our fourth consecutive profitable quarter. So our whole year was profitable. That comes off of four consecutive years that the prior SunPower, a different company, did not make money. Our Q4 2025 revenue and operating income were both records. Our 2025 revenue totaled $308.8 million. So we managed to hold the revenue and not lose it. There are factors that can cause you to lose revenue in our business. I'll talk about that later. With a profit. And that included a loss of this profit of $1.1 million in bad debt reserve we took last quarter. Our Q1 2026 revenue is expected to be $84 million, and I say it's highly uncertain. I'm pretty sure of the 84, but I put some slack in the writing.

T.J. Rodgers: Our Q1 2026 operating income is expected to be positive. That's the main event. If we make it through Q1 with positive income, we're going to make it through 2026. I'm going to say one thing about marketing. This is the Energy Information Administration, sort of one of the official places to get data. This is United States residential solar penetration. So it says that in the United States, we currently, as of 2024, this report, we're 5.6% penetrated, up from 3.7% in 2020. And then here you can see in the west, the sunny west in California, where green is in big time. The penetrations are higher. Even then, the highest penetration on the list is 15.5%. Point is, I don't think about the market as being competitive like I used to with chips. Don't worry about my competitor.

T.J. Rodgers: So stop thinking about, do you have a hiccup? What happens with the dislocation in the market? Stop thinking about that and go take some market share. That's where my head is. This is a graph of acquisition-related increases in our sales rep headcount. So in the solar business, we talk about 1099s, meaning in the IRS, they're 1099s, meaning they're independent contractors. They don't work for us. We can't give them orders. We can't force them to domicile somewhere. And they can quit at will. And the fact is, in the 1099 world, oftentimes people will go to a different company, and you'll find out about it later. So these are our reps. And the name of the game here is since you don't pay for them, you pay them only commission. They're only incremental costs, big incremental costs, but only incremental costs.

So stop thinking about, do you have a hiccup? What happens with the dislocation in the market? Stop thinking about that and go take some market share. That's where my head is. This is a graph of acquisition-related increases in our sales rep headcount. So in the solar business, we talk about 1099s, meaning in the IRS, they're 1099s, meaning they're independent contractors. They don't work for us. We can't give them orders. We can't force them to domicile somewhere. And they can quit at will. And the fact is, in the 1099 world, oftentimes people will go to a different company, and you'll find out about it later. So these are our reps. And the name of the game here is since you don't pay for them, you pay them only commission. They're only incremental costs, big incremental costs, but only incremental costs.

T.J. Rodgers: So when Eric Nielsen took over and started running sales, right, better than me for sure, then the 1099s decided it was in their interest to come to work for us. So this number has actually been growing. Then in Q4, we announced Ambia. And Ambia added 203 salespeople, and they're still with us. This is a snapshot on today so I could give you where we are now. And then we've never announced this, but another company in Salt Lake went bankrupt. It's called PureLight. It had 350 sales reps that were generally considered to be really top-notch. So we created a program to bring them in, talk about it later. And we hired them. So I didn't put this on any of the financials because they're 1099s. We have now more 1099s working for us, and these guys are pretty good.

T.J. Rodgers: The fact is, the results they're producing so far are pretty impressive. So bottom line, we've gone from 1,100 to 2,000, rounded out, almost double in our sales rep headcount. Having said that, there's another headcount that matters and matters in a different way. This is our direct employee headcount, piece we call W-2. So it's at work for us, and we pay them to standard employees. That needs to stay stable because when this goes up to a first order, directly proportional, your cost going up and your gross profit going down. So this thing goes all the way back to Q3 2024, back in that massive loss quarter I showed you earlier. You can see why there was massive losses. The combined companies had 3,499 employees. We used the ARC strategy and said we could handle 1,225 on the ARC.

The fact is, the results they're producing so far are pretty impressive. So bottom line, we've gone from 1,100 to 2,000, rounded out, almost double in our sales rep headcount. Having said that, there's another headcount that matters and matters in a different way. This is our direct employee headcount, piece we call W-2. So it's at work for us, and we pay them to standard employees. That needs to stay stable because when this goes up to a first order, directly proportional, your cost going up and your gross profit going down. So this thing goes all the way back to Q3 2024, back in that massive loss quarter I showed you earlier. You can see why there was massive losses. The combined companies had 3,499 employees. We used the ARC strategy and said we could handle 1,225 on the ARC.

T.J. Rodgers: Then we got clobbered with revenue going down, and we stayed at $304,000. That's a make a little bit of money level. Then we climbed to $337,000 last quarter. And this quarter, we're setting a record. First time we've been over $400,000 per employee per year. So there's Sunder coming in, and there's Ambia coming in. And those companies brought in more salespeople in sales than they brought in people. Therefore, revenue per employee went up in each case. I'm comparing to Sunrun because I admire them. If you take their revenue of $240 billion and 1,105 employees, these are published numbers, you get $217,000. Not a completely fair comparison because they also run utilities, right? They keep their jobs. They don't sell them like we do to some other financial company or the owner of a house.

Then we got clobbered with revenue going down, and we stayed at $304,000. That's a make a little bit of money level. Then we climbed to $337,000 last quarter. And this quarter, we're setting a record. First time we've been over $400,000 per employee per year. So there's Sunder coming in, and there's Ambia coming in. And those companies brought in more salespeople in sales than they brought in people. Therefore, revenue per employee went up in each case. I'm comparing to Sunrun because I admire them. If you take their revenue of $240 billion and 1,105 employees, these are published numbers, you get $217,000. Not a completely fair comparison because they also run utilities, right? They keep their jobs. They don't sell them like we do to some other financial company or the owner of a house.

T.J. Rodgers: There was no smoke indicating fire or anything like that. But I'm tired of it. And therefore, I've hired a guy named Cal Hogan. He's a well-known Silicon Valley financial consultant. He's worked for 20 companies. He comes in. He's an auditor himself, and he helps you straighten up your finances by bringing in his knowledge of state-of-the-art systems. In the last three years, he's worked for 20 companies. And his longest tenure at any one of the companies has been seven months. So he comes in, helps you fix it, and then goes on to his next company. And he's been with us for a few weeks right now. And he's going to help us speed up, upgrade our financial systems. Finally, I've been talking to CFO now for six months. I've used my own network, which I could find a CFO.

T.J. Rodgers: I wrote these words carefully, "Silicon Valley's premier solar company." I was around when SunPower went public in 2002. I was chairman of SunPower. Everybody knew about Cobalt. They made a big deal about the Monolith panels. My guys back in Salt Lake said, "Yeah, we got some more panels. That's great." We got a lot of different kinds of panels. John Berger called me up and said, "When can I get some?" I said, "When you need them." He said, "Now." So they got put in his parking lot just last week. One of our first projects is going to be 111kW. So they do bigger stuff. There's a building called the Fortinet building in Sunnyvale. Sunnyvale is two cities south of Palo Alto, dead center of Silicon Valley. It's an iconic building. That's going to be one of our first ones.

T.J. Rodgers: So that's a little piece of Silicon Valley that we brought to Salt Lake. Now, I can introduce John Berger. This is a picture. He has a house in Santa Cruz. And this is a picture of him, self-made man. His dad had a water well business and died. And he got yanked out of college in his junior year to take the family business. He started working on solar thermal collectors. This is solar energy focused to heat water. Worked his way into understanding PV. I knew about him at SunPower. He started as a salesman and walked right through up to the Silicon Valley regional sales manager, arguably the most important sales position in sales other than maybe one of the biggest companies in Salt Lake. He went to work for Qcells. It's a Korean manufacturer that sells a lot of panels in the US.

So that's a little piece of Silicon Valley that we brought to Salt Lake. Now, I can introduce John Berger. This is a picture. He has a house in Santa Cruz. And this is a picture of him, self-made man. His dad had a water well business and died. And he got yanked out of college in his junior year to take the family business. He started working on solar thermal collectors. This is solar energy focused to heat water. Worked his way into understanding PV. I knew about him at SunPower. He started as a salesman and walked right through up to the Silicon Valley regional sales manager, arguably the most important sales position in sales other than maybe one of the biggest companies in Salt Lake. He went to work for Qcells. It's a Korean manufacturer that sells a lot of panels in the US.

T.J. Rodgers: Ambia asked their sales force to do site visits. They eliminated a whole step in the process, shortened down the process, and also obviously made it more efficient. These guys have gone one step farther. They're salespeople that are called system designers, and they can design things. So they can go into some mogul's house in Silicon Valley and put together a big system, which requires more elaborate and detailed plans than a simple retrofit on a suburban house. He's also an athlete and a coach in youth sports. He's going to run Cobalt, which we are going to run due to fact he runs it. I've been there. I was there for their company picnic. It's got great esprit de corps. They're far away, except not for me. So I can meddle as frequently as I want. John, you got some words for us. I do.

Ambia asked their sales force to do site visits. They eliminated a whole step in the process, shortened down the process, and also obviously made it more efficient. These guys have gone one step farther. They're salespeople that are called system designers, and they can design things. So they can go into some mogul's house in Silicon Valley and put together a big system, which requires more elaborate and detailed plans than a simple retrofit on a suburban house. He's also an athlete and a coach in youth sports. He's going to run Cobalt, which we are going to run due to fact he runs it. I've been there. I was there for their company picnic. It's got great esprit de corps. They're far away, except not for me. So I can meddle as frequently as I want. John, you got some words for us.

T.J. Rodgers: Excited to be here. Been involved with SunPower since late 2006, where our customers had to wait six months to get panels. Well, now they don't have to wait six months, and they don't want anything that's safe harbored and waiting in a warehouse for two years. They want the newest technology, and they want it deployed, and they want it deployed on their house now. Cost of electricity is going up. But what Cobalt Power Systems really represents here, and it's a different type of acquisition for Mr. Rodgers and Mr. McCranie and his team, is we represent a differentiated scalable revenue vector for SunPower. So we're uniquely positioned to integrate sales origination, operational execution, and next-generation renewable energy technology deployment, all within the single platform.

Excited to be here. Been involved with SunPower since late 2006, where our customers had to wait six months to get panels. Well, now they don't have to wait six months, and they don't want anything that's safe harbored and waiting in a warehouse for two years. They want the newest technology, and they want it deployed, and they want it deployed on their house now. Cost of electricity is going up. But what Cobalt Power Systems really represents here, and it's a different type of acquisition for Mr. Rodgers and Mr. McCranie and his team, is we represent a differentiated scalable revenue vector for SunPower. So we're uniquely positioned to integrate sales origination, operational execution, and next-generation renewable energy technology deployment, all within the single platform.

T.J. Rodgers: So together, our combined capabilities, as TJ has mentioned earlier with the sales capability, I mean, right now we've got a dozen system designers, and they're top-notch. They're top tier. But having access to 1,800 or over 1,800 sales reps, that plays right into our position. So together, we can address the full spectrum of demand of the market, spanning residential, new home construction, multifamily, light commercial, large-scale commercial, industrial applications, including up to large-scale data center power infrastructure. By operating Cobalt as a focused subsidiary within a publicly traded enterprise, SunPower unlocks a multiplier effect, unknown or unseen in the market. It's got efficient access to capital for a company like Cobalt. Its workforce scale and its institutional resources as a publicly traded company will allow us to scale, grow, and meet the market demand for renewable energy power.

So together, our combined capabilities, as TJ has mentioned earlier with the sales capability, I mean, right now we've got a dozen system designers, and they're top-notch. They're top tier. But having access to 1,800 or over 1,800 sales reps, that plays right into our position. So together, we can address the full spectrum of demand of the market, spanning residential, new home construction, multifamily, light commercial, large-scale commercial, industrial applications, including up to large-scale data center power infrastructure. By operating Cobalt as a focused subsidiary within a publicly traded enterprise, SunPower unlocks a multiplier effect, unknown or unseen in the market. It's got efficient access to capital for a company like Cobalt. Its workforce scale and its institutional resources as a publicly traded company will allow us to scale, grow, and meet the market demand for renewable energy power.

T.J. Rodgers: It takes five to seven years for a gas turbine to be installed in one of these units. They need power now. They need solar. They need wind. They need infrastructure and execution, which we can provide. Cobalt brings a proven track record of building, operating a profitable business unit, which is unique in solar. It's positioned to deliver meaningful, sustainable profitability while accelerating the deployment of industry-leading energy solutions to end users at scale. That's why when we first got our first shipment of Monolith last Friday, we have customers that have already oversold. We're already oversold our first container. So we're getting our second container. They want the most power-dense module. They want to use the best parts of the roof. Why? Because they have EVs. They have complex energy demands that are requiring more electricity. We're here to serve that function.

It takes five to seven years for a gas turbine to be installed in one of these units. They need power now. They need solar. They need wind. They need infrastructure and execution, which we can provide. Cobalt brings a proven track record of building, operating a profitable business unit, which is unique in solar. It's positioned to deliver meaningful, sustainable profitability while accelerating the deployment of industry-leading energy solutions to end users at scale. That's why when we first got our first shipment of Monolith last Friday, we have customers that have already oversold. We're already oversold our first container. So we're getting our second container. They want the most power-dense module. They want to use the best parts of the roof. Why? Because they have EVs. They have complex energy demands that are requiring more electricity. We're here to serve that function.

T.J. Rodgers: That is, they're going to do contracts with customers, create final contracts that are, let me call them, almost bulletproof, and sell those. Those things are worth $10,000, $12,000, $15,000. They're going to keep that business going. So there's a higher velocity of sales going through our company than we're actually installing, meaning we can keep level loaded all of our internal capacity so that we don't have ups and downs with installers, for example, working half the time. Devin Glassman is their first employee. He's a lawyer, MBA, and he's sales ops for the whole company. I picked one slide to illustrate. This is us before. This is us before, and this is us after Sunder. I showed light coverage in the sun states. Now we have heavy coverage in the sun states, and we were in 45 states. That'll make a difference.

That is, they're going to do contracts with customers, create final contracts that are, let me call them, almost bulletproof, and sell those. Those things are worth $10,000, $12,000, $15,000. They're going to keep that business going. So there's a higher velocity of sales going through our company than we're actually installing, meaning we can keep level loaded all of our internal capacity so that we don't have ups and downs with installers, for example, working half the time. Devin Glassman is their first employee. He's a lawyer, MBA, and he's sales ops for the whole company. I picked one slide to illustrate. This is us before. This is us before, and this is us after Sunder. I showed light coverage in the sun states. Now we have heavy coverage in the sun states, and we were in 45 states. That'll make a difference.

T.J. Rodgers: The next acquisition was Ambia. They're an $80 million company, and they got a couple more stars out of them. Connor Ruscio is their co-founder and CEO. He's an ultramarathon athlete, and he's running our SunPower Direct, which is all of SunPower except for new homes and sales. So SunPower has now got three parts: new homes, direct, which is all of the startups merged together, and sales, which is selling of orders, not the installing of product. And he's got an excellent COO. I'm an operating guy, right? So I know if these guys are good or not. And he's really good. And same as Spencer Jensen. And he's running direct operations for the largest part of the company. And I'll show you what that means shortly. We just acquired him. So I threw in two slides that they lured me with. This is their revenue growth.

The next acquisition was Ambia. They're an $80 million company, and they got a couple more stars out of them. Connor Ruscio is their co-founder and CEO. He's an ultramarathon athlete, and he's running our SunPower Direct, which is all of SunPower except for new homes and sales. So SunPower has now got three parts: new homes, direct, which is all of the startups merged together, and sales, which is selling of orders, not the installing of product. And he's got an excellent COO. I'm an operating guy, right? So I know if these guys are good or not. And he's really good. And same as Spencer Jensen. And he's running direct operations for the largest part of the company. And I'll show you what that means shortly. We just acquired him. So I threw in two slides that they lured me with. This is their revenue growth.

T.J. Rodgers: So what this says is the 50th percentile in median cycle time in days for various things. So from the project received to permit submitted, seven days. Bam. They get out of the blocks. Project received installation complete, put it in, 41.6 days. Then we go through getting inspection. That's the city to say, Okay, you're approved. And PTO, that's to get the utility to say, Okay, you can hook it up. And all of these are exemplary numbers. And what's even better is even their ugliest numbers are pretty good. We won't have stuff hanging out that didn't get shipped before the end of the quarter. And I'll just point out that this is 15 days faster than SunPower. In turn, SunPower was faster by weeks than the other two areas that I shut down at the original merger. Okay. What are we trying to do?

So what this says is the 50th percentile in median cycle time in days for various things. So from the project received to permit submitted, seven days. Bam. They get out of the blocks. Project received installation complete, put it in, 41.6 days. Then we go through getting inspection. That's the city to say, Okay, you're approved. And PTO, that's to get the utility to say, Okay, you can hook it up. And all of these are exemplary numbers. And what's even better is even their ugliest numbers are pretty good. We won't have stuff hanging out that didn't get shipped before the end of the quarter. And I'll just point out that this is 15 days faster than SunPower. In turn, SunPower was faster by weeks than the other two areas that I shut down at the original merger. Okay. What are we trying to do?

T.J. Rodgers: Zoom up a little bit. The goal is consistently profitable growth from our current $300 million level to $1 billion in 2028. If you do one billion divided by 300 million and take it to the 0.33 power, you get 50% per year. So that means we have to have inorganic growth as well as organic growth to do that. Here's an example from the latest quarter in Q4. We did 88 million profit. We now have 111 million shares fully diluted. Our price-to-sales ratio still sucks, just I told you that earlier. And our share price, when I was finishing the slide this morning, I pushed the button on my phone, and that was the number I got. We have a plan. This is like the ninth revision of the second major plan. And here we're going to 250 million. That's a billion-dollar run rate.

T.J. Rodgers: We're going to spend some more stock, but not a lot more. We're pretty much acquired what we need to acquire. If our price-to-sales ratio gets to 1.72, I showed you that calculation earlier. That's 554. That's a 3x. And that's a bogey for, I'll say, just becoming competent. Vision. So who will we be? Who will care? SunPower will again be recognized as number one in solar by introducing advanced technology hardware and software-controlled solar. Now this, if you have the best hardware, then you're going to get jobs you wouldn't get otherwise. But it's not dominant like the old SunPower had dominant panels that nobody could touch. The new world is going to be software-controlled solar system products, meaning everything is smart. Everything has a compatible computer and language, and everything has a compatible bus. And that doesn't mean Wi-Fi or any bullshit radio. It means wires.

We're going to spend some more stock, but not a lot more. We're pretty much acquired what we need to acquire. If our price-to-sales ratio gets to 1.72, I showed you that calculation earlier. That's 554. That's a 3x. And that's a bogey for, I'll say, just becoming competent. Vision. So who will we be? Who will care? SunPower will again be recognized as number one in solar by introducing advanced technology hardware and software-controlled solar. Now this, if you have the best hardware, then you're going to get jobs you wouldn't get otherwise. But it's not dominant like the old SunPower had dominant panels that nobody could touch. The new world is going to be software-controlled solar system products, meaning everything is smart. Everything has a compatible computer and language, and everything has a compatible bus. And that doesn't mean Wi-Fi or any bullshit radio. It means wires.

T.J. Rodgers: So your electric car can talk to your battery and do what's right for you at that time. Your battery can talk to your panels to do what's right. Your battery knows when it's high and low price time because that's all downloaded from the cloud into your battery. So software-controlled true systems, not hacked together somebody's panels and somebody else's batteries. That's the future. So what are we doing about the future? I already told you about the panel. I told you about the bifacial panel. The next level of sales is going to be Perovskite Silicon. I'm on the board of two companies that are working on Perovskite Silicon. Not ready yet. That's why I put a warning out here. Talked a lot. Then there's Enphase inverters. The IQ8 is the first inverter in the world to allow sunlight backup.

So your electric car can talk to your battery and do what's right for you at that time. Your battery can talk to your panels to do what's right. Your battery knows when it's high and low price time because that's all downloaded from the cloud into your battery. So software-controlled true systems, not hacked together somebody's panels and somebody else's batteries. That's the future. So what are we doing about the future? I already told you about the panel. I told you about the bifacial panel. The next level of sales is going to be Perovskite Silicon. I'm on the board of two companies that are working on Perovskite Silicon. Not ready yet. That's why I put a warning out here. Talked a lot. Then there's Enphase inverters. The IQ8 is the first inverter in the world to allow sunlight backup.

T.J. Rodgers: If you have no battery because you don't want to afford one now, when the sun rises, it will freeze your freezer for you, and your freezer won't melt with a three-day outage. Just by having a solar system with an inverter, it's not perfect, but it's way better than a normal solar system. Their IQ-9 inverter uses gallium nitride, and it starts providing high voltage for commercial applications. Gallium nitride transistors instead of silicon transistors. And then there's the electric vehicle with zero carbon. There, you can tell your system in your cell phone, and this is deployed. I want my car to be charged only with solar electrons. Well, why would you do that? Because if you're green and you live in California, you bought an electric car. And by the way, I can almost throw a rock and hit Tesla from where I am right now.

If you have no battery because you don't want to afford one now, when the sun rises, it will freeze your freezer for you, and your freezer won't melt with a three-day outage. Just by having a solar system with an inverter, it's not perfect, but it's way better than a normal solar system. Their IQ-9 inverter uses gallium nitride, and it starts providing high voltage for commercial applications. Gallium nitride transistors instead of silicon transistors. And then there's the electric vehicle with zero carbon. There, you can tell your system in your cell phone, and this is deployed. I want my car to be charged only with solar electrons. Well, why would you do that? Because if you're green and you live in California, you bought an electric car. And by the way, I can almost throw a rock and hit Tesla from where I am right now.

T.J. Rodgers: You bought your electric car because you didn't want to burn oil. And then the problem is the electricity you put in your car burned oil or gas in order to make it. But if your electricity comes from the sun, it didn't burn anything for anybody. And you actually can commute to work in a nice car without using any oil of any kind. And that maybe you're not jumping up and down about that, but I guarantee you people here in California will jump up about it. And that has just become available in the last quarter. And then EV battery for backup. The flip side is if I charge your car with green electrons, when will I be able to take those green electrons out of your car and have a massive battery, 10 times bigger than a typical solar battery that I have for free?

T.J. Rodgers: Not always there, but I have for free. So I'm an R&D guy. So I don't talk about futures. These are now, now, now, now. And this is what is going to differentiate us in advanced technology, hardware, and software-controlled solar system products. This is our plan, the long-range plan. It's a work in progress. But you can see here we have three divisions. SunPower Direct is green is the big one. I told you that earlier. That's all of SunPower except for Sunder. We sell only contracts, including to inside contracts to our divisions. And new homes, which sells to corporations and also has a procurement management system that can manage other installations where we can get credit for everything by using partners, not internal people. So that is the new organization of SunPower. We just did a $309 million year.

Not always there, but I have for free. So I'm an R&D guy. So I don't talk about futures. These are now, now, now, now. And this is what is going to differentiate us in advanced technology, hardware, and software-controlled solar system products. This is our plan, the long-range plan. It's a work in progress. But you can see here we have three divisions. SunPower Direct is green is the big one. I told you that earlier. That's all of SunPower except for Sunder. We sell only contracts, including to inside contracts to our divisions. And new homes, which sells to corporations and also has a procurement management system that can manage other installations where we can get credit for everything by using partners, not internal people. So that is the new organization of SunPower. We just did a $309 million year.

T.J. Rodgers: We're back at the $10 million. And this is when in Q4 of this year, our plan says we're going to be cash flow positive from operations and fund the thing. In order to keep this up, this is being supported. We have two raised at $17 million in this quarter and $29 million in this quarter. So that is our cash need to cash flow positive, two rounds, $46 million. You guys ought to understand that, I think. Okay. Next quarter is going to be $84 million. It'll be our second best-ever quarter. We're going to be down, quote unquote, only 4%. We expect the industry to be at least 10% and maybe 15% or maybe even more down. So we expect to gain share. We're going to have operating profit, and we're going to have that for every quarter. That's our expectation. I didn't promise every quarter of 2026.

We're back at the $10 million. And this is when in Q4 of this year, our plan says we're going to be cash flow positive from operations and fund the thing. In order to keep this up, this is being supported. We have two raised at $17 million in this quarter and $29 million in this quarter. So that is our cash need to cash flow positive, two rounds, $46 million. You guys ought to understand that, I think. Okay. Next quarter is going to be $84 million. It'll be our second best-ever quarter. We're going to be down, quote unquote, only 4%. We expect the industry to be at least 10% and maybe 15% or maybe even more down. So we expect to gain share. We're going to have operating profit, and we're going to have that for every quarter. That's our expectation. I didn't promise every quarter of 2026.

T.J. Rodgers: And the intelligence in that and the hundreds of man years of time in creating it mean that the other guys can't copy it. It goes back. SunPower enjoyed an advantage with the most efficient solar panels in the world. And they had that for decades. And then it went away because China Inc. We had an automatic line in 2002. China Inc. then started automatic lines later, and they went through eight generations of automatic lines. Now they're caught up. So now a panel, which is itself an engineering work of art, after two decades and a huge amount of investment, has become something you buy is a commodity. Cars are commodities. And they're amazing in their engineering anyway. So systems, we all know. The investors like software companies. We all know. Give you one example.

T.J. Rodgers: Hawaii's got different rules in California than Massachusetts for what you have to do in various solar events when you hook up just an ordinary solar system. What do you do about that? The answer is we download. Enphase downloads a program into their system that not only puts you in Hawaii, but keeps up with the Hawaii legislature every time they change it and all the other venues for it. So it's that kind of fast flexibility where you're writing software for given hardware. And then you have the best hardware too. I'm not knocking that. That will differentiate. And that's why you need a national company because only a national company can be big enough to afford that, have partnerships that matter, and afford that kind of effort. TJ, who's going to be facilitating the software piece of the business?

T.J. Rodgers: I think if you look at any industry, Boeing doesn't make jet engines. Somebody else, Pratt & Whitney, for example, Rolls-Royce makes jet engines. It becomes very hard to do it when you partner. And that's what we're going to do, but we're going to be cognizant. We're cognizant today of what you have to do. Got it. That's helpful. A couple of clarifying questions. The $84 million guidance with $4 million of uncertainty, is the way to interpret that as $80 million of high likelihood revenue with $4 million that's uncertain, or is the $4 million potential upside to guidance? So I feel like there's a little box being put here and then another little box being put here, and then I'm starting to look up and there's a little lid going on there. I'll be honest with you.

T.J. Rodgers: It turns out once I bought it, then I got told, "You got to put it on your books and depreciate it." So I lose money every quarter because I have the name SunPower, etc. If you want to look at OpEx, look at that line right there. I also take out commission because commission is like 30%. Best case I've ever seen is 26%, and I've seen as high as 36%. So if you want to look at OpEx, you subtract out commission, you subtract out intangibles like I've been describing, and that's the real OpEx. And that's under tight control. I review our headcount twice a week, and there is no swap there, no one-time events or anything. There's distortion in accounting mandated by law. Got it. That's helpful. And my last question, T.J., the silver price has been going up. That's a key component in solar panels.

T.J. Rodgers: Fact is, later in the year, for my economy system, the lowest-cost system, I plan on buying those panels at a steep discount to the guys that are listening to the depreciation clock in their warehouse as the panels are worth less and less over time. There are dozens, literally dozens, of panel plants being built in the United States. As we speak, there's already a bunch of them. So to get by the tariffs, many of the Asian companies, they'll make their solar cells offshore. They'll import the solar cells, much lighter, much smaller, air freight, come in fast, and then put them in panels, heavy, big machines in the United States. And there's way more of those plants being created right now. The panel business is a no-profit zone. You do not want to be involved with it.

T.J. Rodgers: We've got two phases going on with Sunder right now. First off, their fundamental 1099 force that they brought us in in late September has moved up dramatically in total bookings. Secondly, TJ was telling me about five weeks ago that we brought in about 350 PureLight guys. We brought them in at the very, very end of 2025, and we've been expanding in 2026. Those guys have already produced significant bookings. In their first four weeks, we have over 100 strong bookings. We have another 350 that are in the front end of the booking channel. The way it looks for us right now with Sunder is that we're going to have a larger revenue than we currently are forecast as a result of the rapid expansion in 1099 sales force with Sunder. So we're very pleased with that part of residential retrofit.

We've got two phases going on with Sunder right now. First off, their fundamental 1099 force that they brought us in in late September has moved up dramatically in total bookings. Secondly, TJ was telling me about five weeks ago that we brought in about 350 PureLight guys. We brought them in at the very, very end of 2025, and we've been expanding in 2026. Those guys have already produced significant bookings. In their first four weeks, we have over 100 strong bookings. We have another 350 that are in the front end of the booking channel. The way it looks for us right now with Sunder is that we're going to have a larger revenue than we currently are forecast as a result of the rapid expansion in 1099 sales force with Sunder. So we're very pleased with that part of residential retrofit.

T.J. Rodgers: That's working very good for us. So this is a controversial issue, which I talk about five days a week. And the reason Eric Nielsen is the better VP of sales than T.J. Rodgers or his, whoever he appoints, is that Eric understands these guys' 1099s and I don't. And I'm a bit of a do-what's-right-for-the-company, do-it-with-discipline kind of guy. But in order to keep the 1099s, Eric gives them a work environment that they appreciate. And I supported that with stock, but there's other things. And one of the things they get is they get to poke whatever button they want or which EPC, that is, installer, gets the job. Okay? Right now, they can poke 26 buttons. SunPower Direct us 27 buttons. SunPower Direct us. SunPower New Homes us. And then 25 EPCs that are literally our competitors.

T.J. Rodgers: So that's the ever-supply of orders that I'm talking about that'll keep those organizations level loaded all year long. And finally, Gus, the PureLight acquisition of 1099s moved us, expanded us into states where even Sunder wasn't particularly strong after the acquisition. An example of that is the Northeast and, in particular, the Oregon territory. Those are target-rich for TPOs. We were fair in coverage there. And now with the PureLight sales guys, we are very, very strong. So I'm feeling very good about retail-residential sales and retail-residential bookings for 2026. I talked about the original SunPower sales force declining partly due to bankruptcy. It's also partly due to the fact that the original SunPower sales force sold a lot in the Midwest. And in the Midwest, guys are like me. They write a check. They get it. They own it.

T.J. Rodgers: No money out of your pocket." "And then, by the way, we'll pay your first few payments for you. And then all you do is pay payments. And by the way, here's the calculation showing your payment with our solar will be less than you would have paid anyway. So you'll be no money out of pocket to begin with, and you'll be ahead every month after that. Would you like some solar?" And that's the switch to TPO, third-party ownership where a financing company or another solar company like Sunrun owns the system and has an intent to make money on money. And that is what was wrong. Not wrong. That's what is a difficult change. Sounds like, "Okay. Sell this one. Not that one. The pitches are quite similar. You're knocking on the same doors." Turns out it's not a trivial change.

T.J. Rodgers: The SunPower sales force had issues with that. These new sales forces we've acquired are TPO-friendly sales forces. They were already there. Those companies became big and famous because they saw the TPO thing before we did. They were already there. Now we're working together. Okay. Got it. Just on Cobalt, I just want to make sure I'm clear. It sounded like you do almost utility scale, industrial-size installations. You mentioned data centers. I'm just wondering sort of how do I think about the markets you address, C&I, industrial, utility scale, and kind of how big a system to install at this point? Go ahead. Sure. Well, we've been limited because we are a small private company, but we have the expertise, and we have the execution history of installing multiple megawatts. We've installed 12MW in Port of Stockton.

T.J. Rodgers: We're installing right now, just finished up a 1.4MW project in Santa Clara University. That was three phases. That was superstructure, carport. We're just finishing up the Los Altos Golf and Country Club. That's got ground mount. It's got a carport structure. And it's also got on the main clubhouse. So we have the expertise to install systems with complicated voltage requirements, step-up, step-down, switch gears, modifications. And we do all that in-house. So we have the in-house expertise and the technical expertise to do it. We just haven't had the market capitalization to grow that across the country. And now with a publicly traded company behind us, we can achieve excellence and execution at scale. Got it. Thanks so much. That's it for me. And for me, we're in Silicon Valley right now, and I'm a Silicon Valley guy.

T.J. Rodgers: One of the things I've missed a lot with the sort of standard solar mindset is that it's becoming commoditized. Like I said, could be aluminum siding. All of a sudden, engineering matters again. Scale matters again. The plans you have to submit, guess what? The plans I submit in Austin, Texas, to put 5kW on your house are pro forma. As a matter of fact, many of the planning commissions actually now have online, and you can even do one-day planning. In Palo Alto, California, if you want to put in 1MW of solar, you're dealing with the city of Palo Alto. A formidable task, I'll just tell you. That means you have capability that is beyond what you had before, and you can study it and understand it. Marketing. I just watched their marketing. I'm going to start sending groups.

T.J. Rodgers: Gus? I think Gus left the line. We do have a couple of quick ones from the online audience. I'll start off with one quick one from me, asking about our conference schedule for Q1, just so everyone's aware. We will be at the Jefferies Power Utilities and Clean Energy Conference in March, the first week of March in New York City. On 11 March in New York City, we will be attending the Cantor Technology and Industrials Conference. Then on 12 March, we will be involved in the virtual Canaccord Genuity Sustainability Summit. In addition, we'll be doing some NDRs and fireside chats. So please reach out if you have any questions about scheduling. One quick question from the line. You've discussed new homes progress, which will be material to growth in 2027 and forward. Can you discuss the progress on rebuilding that pipeline today? Okay.

Siobhan Hickie: Gus? I think Gus left the line. We do have a couple of quick ones from the online audience. I'll start off with one quick one from me, asking about our conference schedule for Q1, just so everyone's aware. We will be at the Jefferies Power Utilities and Clean Energy Conference in March, the first week of March in New York City. On 11 March in New York City, we will be attending the Cantor Technology and Industrials Conference. Then on 12 March, we will be involved in the virtual Canaccord Genuity Sustainability Summit. In addition, we'll be doing some NDRs and fireside chats. So please reach out if you have any questions about scheduling. One quick question from the line. You've discussed new homes progress, which will be material to growth in 2027 and forward. Can you discuss the progress on rebuilding that pipeline today?

T.J. Rodgers: So as Kamila said, our plan is over $110 million in bookings this year, up from $40-plus million last year in 2025. Remember, there's a five- to six-quarter lag between bookings and revenue in new homes. So the numbers you see us booking right now are going to be reflective in very strong revenue growth in 2027. On top of that, our pipeline, our opportunity pipeline has grown nicely as we continue to expand our sales organization in new homes. And we're feeling more and more comfortable as the quarters go on of our ability to meet and beat that $110 million. Finally, you may want to ask yourself, what was your all-time best numbers in new homes back when the old SunPower was around? And I believe Kamila's in the neighborhood of $50 to $60 million quarters.

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