Having acted as the advisor to SMRE in the deal with SolarEdge, Roth Capital Partners believes entering the electric vehicles market works well for SolarEdge as it plays more to its strengths. (Photo Credit: SMRE Spa)

PV Inverter Maker SolarEdge Technologies To Acquire 75% Stake In South Korean Battery Storage Supplier Kokam For $88 Million; Shares Future Plans To Make It Wholly-Owned Subsidiary

Eyeing the growing potential of electric vehicles in the near and long term future, solar PV inverter and energy storage company SolarEdge Technologies, Inc. will now enter the electric vehicles market. It signed a definitive agreement to acquire Italy’s SMRE Spa.

Actively running 3 business units – e-mobility, automated production machines and telematic software, SMRE is an integrated powertrain technology and electric vehicles electronics company.

SolarEdge will acquire 51% of the outstanding shares of the company from its Founder Samuele Mazzini and 2 stockholders for some $77 million. Following the completion of this transaction in the coming weeks, SolarEdge will come out with a mandatory tender offer to purchase the remaining outstanding shares to make the Italian company its wholly-owned subsidiary.

“The acquisition of SMRE is another step in executing our strategy of sustainable growth by addressing an additional fast growing and technologically synergetic market while diversifying into new fields outside the solar arena,” said SolarEdge Founder, CEO and Chairman Guy Sella while explaining the rationale behind the company’s decision to enter electric vehicles market. “We believe that combining SMRE’s vast experience and full powertrain technology with SolarEdge’s innovative power and battery technology, proven operational excellence and global reach, positions us to become a market leader in this important market.”

In October 2018, SolarEdge announced its acquisition of South Korea based battery storage supplier Kokam for $88 million (see SolarEdge To Acquire South Korean Storage Company).

Analysts at Roth Capital Partners, that acted as an advisor for SMRE, hail the move to acquire SMRE saying it plays more to the strength of SolarEdge than the Kokam acquisition. “We believe the overlap of power electronics core competency is greater, and, as a result, we expect SEDG to be able to move the needle on earnings improvement more quickly.”