Under the terms of the agreement, SolarCity will acquire the Paramount Solar business for US$116.3 million in stock, and the remainder in cash. Paramount Equity CEO Hayes Barnard will join SolarCity as chief revenue officer in charge of the company’s sales and marketing organizations upon closing of the acquisition.

Paramount Solar, one of SolarCity’s most successful channel partners, is majority-owned by Guthy¦Renker, the company behind Proactiv Solution and one of the world’s leading direct marketing companies. In connection with the acquisition, Ben Van de Bunt, longtime CEO of Guthy¦Renker LLC, is expected to join SolarCity’s board of directors later this year, subject to nomination procedures and board approval.

“SolarCity has developed what I believe to be the best field sales and marketing organization in the solar industry. The national residential solar market has been growing between 60-70 per cent annually, and we’ve been growing at twice that rate – 144% year over year in the most recent quarter – and had three times the market share of our nearest competitor in 2012,” said SolarCity CEO Lyndon Rive. 

SolarCity is a major full service solar provider in the US with more than 3,300 employees, more than 68,000 customers and more than 400 megawatts (MW) deployed. Approximately one in every five new residential solar customers in the US chooses SolarCity, according to data from GTM Research. The company’s goal to reach one million customers equates to approximately 6,000 MW deployed, or six gigawatts of total generation capacity.

The transaction is expected to be completed in September, subject to customary closing conditions.