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Item 1. Business
Shoals Technologies Group, Inc. is a Delaware corporation with Class A common stock that trades on the Nasdaq Global Market under the symbol “SHLS”. Unless the context otherwise requires, references to "we," "us," "our," “Shoals,” the “Corporation,” the "Company" and other similar references refer to Shoals Technologies Group, Inc. and, unless otherwise stated, all of its subsidiaries, including Shoals Parent LLC (“Shoals Parent”). Unless the context otherwise requires, references to “Founder” refer to Dean Solon, our founder, references to “Oaktree” refer to Oaktree Power Opportunities Fund IV (Delaware) Holdings, L.P., a Delaware limited partnership, and its affiliates, and references to “Continuing Equity Owners” refer collectively to direct or indirect holders of LLC Interests (as defined below) and/or our Class B common stock, including our Founder and certain executive officers, employees and their respective permitted transferees who may, exchange at each of their respective options, in whole or in part from time to time, their LLC Interests (along with an equal number of shares of Class B common stock (and such shares shall be immediately cancelled)) for cash or newly issued shares of our Class A common stock.
Initial Public Offering and Organizational Transactions
On January 29, 2021, the Company closed an initial public offering (“IPO”) of 11,550,000 shares of our Class A common stock at a public offering price of $25.00 per share, including shares issued pursuant to the underwriters' exercise of their over-allotment option. We received $278.8 million in proceeds, net of underwriting discounts and commissions, which was used to purchase 6,315,790 newly-issued membership interests in Shoals Parent and 5,234,210 LLC Interests from the Founder and Class B unit holder in Shoals Parent at a price per interest equal to the initial public offering price of our Class A common stock, less the underwriting discounts and commissions. In addition, Oaktree, as selling stockholder, sold 77,000,000 shares of our Class A common stock in the IPO at a public offering price of $25.00 per share, including shares sold pursuant to the underwriters' exercise of their over-allotment option.
In connection with the IPO, the Company and Shoals Parent completed a series of transactions (the "Organizational Transactions") including the following:
•the limited liability company agreement of Shoals Parent was amended and restated to, among other things, (i) provide for a new single class of common membership interests or the LLC Interests in Shoals Parent, (ii) exchange all of the then existing membership interests of the holders of Shoals Parent membership interests for LLC Interests and (iii) appoint the Company as the sole managing member of Shoals Parent;
•the Company's certificate of incorporation was amended and restated to, among other things, (i) provide for Class A common stock with voting and economic rights (ii) provide for Class B common stock with voting rights but no economic rights and (iii) issue 78,300,817 shares of Class B common stock to the former Class B and Class C members of Shoals Parent (the “Continuing Equity Owners”) on a one-to-one basis with the number of LLC Interests they own;
•the acquisition, by merger, of Shoals Investment CTB or the former Class A member of Shoals Parent (the "Class A Shoals Equity Owners"), for which the Company issued 81,977,751 shares Class A common stock as merger consideration (the "Merger").
Follow On Offering
On July 16, 2021, the Company completed a follow-on offering consisting of 4,989,692 shares of Class A common stock offered by the selling shareholders and 10,402,086 shares of Class A common stock offered
by the Company. Following the closing of the follow-on offering, Oaktree no longer beneficially owned any shares of our common stock. The Company used the proceeds of the sale of Class A common stock to purchase an equal number of LLC Interests and Class B common stock from our Founder and management.
Acquisition of ConnectPV
On August 26, 2021, we acquired 100% of the stock of ConnectPV, for $13.8 million in cash (net of $0.8 million cash acquired) and 209,437 shares of Class A Common stock valued at $6.5 million. The acquisition was accounted for as a business combination and following the acquisition we immediately converted ConnectPV to a limited liability company and contributed the entity to Shoals Parent, LLC through a series of transactions.
Exchange of LLC Interests in Shoals Parent
On December 7, 2021, the Company issued 7,870,042 shares of Class A common stock to our founder, executive management and certain employees in exchange for 7,870,042 LLC Interests in Shoals Parent and an equal number of Class B common stock of the Company.
Shoals Technologies Group, Inc Ownership in Shoals Parent
As of December 31, 2021, the Company owned 67.16% of Shoals Parent. The Continuing Equity Owners own the remaining 32.84% of Shoals Parent.
Overview
Shoals is a leading provider of electrical balance of system or “EBOS” solutions for solar energy projects in the United States. EBOS encompasses all of the components that are necessary to carry the electric current produced by solar panels to an inverter and ultimately to the power grid. EBOS components are mission-critical products that have a high consequence of failure, including lost revenue, equipment damage, fire damage, and even serious injury or death. As a result, we believe customers prioritize reliability and safety over price when selecting EBOS solutions. We also recently began selling “EV Charging” solutions for public and fleet electric vehicle charging stations in the United States.
EBOS components that we produce include cable assemblies, inline fuses, combiners, disconnects, recombiners, wireless monitoring systems, junction boxes, transition enclosures, splice boxes, wire management solutions and IV curve benchmarking devices. EV Charging solutions that we produce include the following offerings which fulfill nearly all commercial EV charging needs: the EV BLA, raceways which protect the EV BLAs and other power cables, pedestal bases for Level 2 chargers and quick connect bases for Level 3 and high-power chargers, and the power center on a Shoals quick connect base. We derive the majority of our revenue from selling “system solutions” which are complete EBOS systems that include several of our products, many of which are customized for the customer’s project. We believe our system solutions are unique in our industry because they integrate design and engineering support, proprietary components and innovative installation methods into a single offering that would otherwise be challenging for a customer to obtain from a single provider or at all.
We sell our products principally to engineering, procurement and construction firms ("EPCs”) that build solar energy projects and install electric vehicle charging stations. However, given the mission critical nature of EBOS, the decision to use our products typically involves input from both the EPC and the owner of the solar energy project. The custom nature of our system solutions and the long development cycle for solar energy
projects typically gives us 12 months or more of lead time to quote, engineer, produce and ship each order we receive, and we do not stock large amounts of finished goods.
We derived approximately 73% of our revenue from the sale of system solutions for year ended December 31, 2021. For the same period, we derived substantially all of our revenue from customers in the U.S. We had $299.0 million of backlog and awarded orders, backlog of $119.3 million represents signed purchase orders or contractual minimum purchase commitments with take-or-pay provisions and awarded orders of $179.7 million are orders we are in the process of documenting a contract but for which a contract has not yet been signed, as of December 31, 2021, representing a 94% and 10% increase relative to the same date last year and September 30, 2021, respectively.
Throughout fiscal year 2021, we focused on our growth strategy, including developments in converting customers to our combine-as-you-go system and developing products for the rapidly growing electric vehicle charging infrastructure market. Additionally, we are currently launching four new product families for the EV charging market. The first is the power center which combines equipment needed to protect the charging equipment and transform voltage levels from the electric utility to those needed on the respective site. The power center provides an efficient, cost effective and aesthetically focused option versus traditional methods. The second offering focuses on quick connect solutions for chargers made by any manufacturer and any power level to connect to the Shoals system. The quick connect bases dramatically reduce the time required on site for a deployment and reduce the amount of labor required in the field. The third offering uses our Big Lead Assembly (“BLA”) technology in the EV space to connect multiple chargers to a single power center. This solution eliminates the need for homeruns from each dispenser and is above ground rated which allows wire to be run above ground rather than in underground conduit. The fourth offering is a raceway system that protects the above ground EV BLAs in walk over and drive over applications. The raceway system coupled with the EV BLA deploys much more rapidly and cost effectively than traditional methods of deployment. We introduced these first four offerings in the fourth quarter of 2021 and received our first orders for deployments. Testing and certification of the offerings and overall solution are underway and progressing.
Solar EBOS
The major components of a ground-mounted solar energy project are solar panels, inverters, the mounting system and EBOS. EBOS encompasses all of the components that are necessary to carry the electric current produced by solar panels to an inverter and ultimately to the power grid. Major EBOS components include cable and wire, combiner boxes, wire management solutions and monitoring systems. We believe our current product offerings address approximately 36% of the total spending on EBOS based on a typical project constructed in 2020.
EBOS components represent only 6% of the total cost of a solar energy project based on a typical project constructed in 2020, but the cost of the labor to install them can be equal to, or even greater than, the cost of the components themselves. As a result of the high ratio of installation costs to product costs, many EPCs prefer EBOS products that can be installed faster using general labor over products that are time consuming to install and require licensed electricians to install them even when they are more expensive.
Demand for EBOS is driven primarily by installations of new ground-mounted solar energy projects. Historically, we have derived the majority of our revenue from the sale of EBOS products used in U.S. solar energy projects.
Our Proprietary EBOS System
Most solar energy projects use a wiring architecture known as “homerun.” Conventional homerun EBOS systems have two distinguishing characteristics: every string of solar panels in the project is connected
to a combiner box with individual positive and negative “wire runs,” and connections between wires are made using a process called “crimping.” The combiner box functions as a central point to “combine” the individual wire runs into a single feeder cable and contains fuses to protect each circuit. Making each wire run from the strings to the combiner boxes is a laborious process. Each wire run must be measured, laid out and fished through conduits that are buried in trenches across the project site. Because each string is individually connected to a combiner box, the same distances are covered with multiple wire runs. Making the crimped connections between wires and interconnecting them in the combiner box is a complex, error prone process that requires special tools. Each wire must be cut and have a precise amount of insulation removed; the bare end must be inserted the correct depth into a terminal; and special tools must be used to deform metal sleeves and torque lock nuts to ensure an environmental seal. The entire installation must be performed by licensed electricians with special training and any mistake in the process can result in a catastrophic system failure.
We invented an alternative to homerun architecture which we refer to as “combine-as-you-go.” Rather than making individual wire runs from each string to combiner boxes, combine-as-you-go architecture connects multiple strings within each row using specialized wire harnesses with integrated fuses that we refer to as “interconnect harnesses.” The interconnect harnesses are then connected to a proprietary above ground feeder cable that we refer to as the BLA. The BLA is our core combine-as-you-go product. The direct connection between the interconnect harness and the BLA and the integration of fuses into the interconnect harness dramatically reduce the number of wire runs required compared to a conventional homerun system and eliminate the need for combiner boxes. We believe our combine-as-you-go architecture using interconnect harnesses and BLA has several advantages when compared to conventional homerun EBOS, including: