 Following years of major expansion and the announcement of the intent – which eventually fell through – to acquire the residential-rooftop solar company Vivint Solar in 2015, SunEdison's stock plummeted and its more than $11billion in debt caused it to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on April 21, 2016., eventually emerging in December 2017 as a restructured, smaller, private company.The establishment of Monsanto Electronic Materials Company (MEMC), a silicon wafer–manufacturing division to serve the emerging electronics industry, was announced on August 6, 1959, as an arm of the U.S.-based multinational corporation Monsanto.In February 1960 MEMC started production of 19mm silicon ingots at its location in St. Peters, Missouri, 30 miles west of Monsanto's headquarters in St. Louis.