SolarCity names Radford Small CFO

Solar panel installer SolarCity Corp , which is in the process of being bought by Tesla Motors Inc , named Radford Small chief financial officer, replacing Tanguy Serra.

Small, SolarCity's executive vice president of global capital markets, joined the company in May 2015 from Goldman Sachs as senior vice president of business development and investor relations.

He took on the global capital markets role in January.

Serra will leave the company by the end of the year, following the anticipated completion of the $2.6 billion takeover, SolarCity said.

Elon Musk is chairman of SolarCity and chairman and chief executive of Tesla.

Tesla said last week that its proposed acquisition of SolarCity could be delayed because of shareholder lawsuits alleging board members had breached their fiduciary duty.

SolarCity also said last month that it was experiencing greater-than-usual delays in closing new project financing commitments due to the takeover talks.

The company also said on Wednesday that it had partnered with Citigroup to create two funds to finance more than $347 million in solar projects.

Earlier this month, SolarCity raised $305 million by selling future cash flows from a portfolio of solar projects to a fund advised by billionaire investor George Soros's hedge fund.

Small has helped the company create about $3 billion in new financing for solar projects, SolarCity said.

SolarCity's shares were up 0.9 percent at $20.16 in early trading.

(Reporting by Arathy S Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Ted Kerr)