After a steady stream of bad news in one of their industry’s worst-ever downturns, solar panel makers Yingli (NYSE: YGE) and Trina (NYSE: TSL) have at least temporarily broken out of the gloom with announcements of two major new deals. The more significant of the two has come from Yingli, which said it will sell 110 megawatts worth of modules to a state-owned Chinese hydropower producer. (English announcement) This deal comes just a month after Yingli secured a $180 million loan from two Chinese state-owned banks. (previous post) These two announcements in such close succession seem to be telling the market that China is finally stepping up to assist its carefully nurtured but struggling solar sector, and that Yingli is perhaps particularly well connected to take advantage of future government support. Investors certainly seem to have liked the news, bidding up Yingli shares by 7 percent in Thursday trade in New York, though they are still down by about a third from their levels in March and April. In the other deal, Trina announced it will sell 55 megawatts worth of modules to be used at an auto-making plant in France. (company announcement) This deal looks much more typical of normal sales in the market, which have tended to go to European and American buyers who now account for the lion’s share of global solar panel sales. Investors also welcomed the Trina news, bidding its shares up by a more modest 3.5 percent, amid a broader rally that saw most solar shares gain 1-2 percent. Look for more solar deals to come from Chinese buyers a in the months ahead, as Beijing ratchets up its buying to support this sector. It will be especially interesting to see who wins those deals, as those companies will be the best-connected ones with the greatest chance of weathering the current downturn.
Bottom line: A new major deal for a domestic hydropower maker to purchase solar modules from Yingli shows Beijing is turning up its efforts to support its struggling sector.
在经历行业有史以来经历的最严重衰退之际，英利<YGE.N>和天合光能<TSL.N>公布了两项新签署的重大协议，至少是暂时突出重围了。其中英利所签署的这一项协议尤为重要——将向中国一家水电开发商供应11万千瓦组件。而此前一个月，英利从两家国有银行获得了1.8亿美元贷款。这麽短时间内的这两件事，似乎是在告诉市场，中国终於开始悉心培养举步艰难的太阳能产业，而有着广泛关系网的英利公司尤其能利用好政府的支持。投资者肯定喜欢这个消息——周四英利在纽约的股价上涨7%，不过经历过3月份和4月份暴跌三分之一後，该公司股价依然较低。而天合光能获得的协议则是向法国一家汽车制造商供应5.5万千瓦组件。这看起来是市场中很正常的一笔交易，因为如今欧洲和美国制造商购买了全球大部分的太阳能电池板。投资者也对天合光能的这个新消息感到振奋——在大多数太阳能公司股价上升1%-2%之际，天合光能的股价上升了3.5%。随着中国政府积极扶持下，未来一个月期待会有更多来自中国买主的太阳能协议。看看谁会赢得合约是很有意思的一件事情，看上去关系网强大的企业最有希望赢得协议，抵御住目前的市场严寒。
一句话：国内一家水电开发商从英利购买太阳能组件的消息说明，中国政府开始扶植太阳能产业。
Related postings 相关文章:
◙ China Comes to Rescue With Yingli Loan 英利获贷款承诺 政府终出手相助
◙ Solar Makers Shine Hopes on New US Commerce Secretary 中国太阳能生产商寄望於新任美国商务部长
◙ Trina Doubles Warranty in Search of Sales 天合光能：延长产品质保年限以提振销售
would leave Wang with just the chairman’s title, and will no doubt add fuel to talk over the last year or so that he will soon retire from the company, which seems likely. So, what does it all mean? Probably very little, to be honest, as the top posts at all the major telcos are all held by party officials, many with engineering and technical backgrounds. Li was trained as an engineer, and Xi appears to have spent most of his recent career at the country’s telecoms regulator in various posts. The appointment of such well-connected bureaucrats would normally look good for a company in this highly-regulated market, except that the top ranks at China Mobile’s two rivals, Unicom (HKEx: 762; NYSE: CHU) and China Telecom (HKEx: 728; NYSE: CHA), are also dominated by such bureaucrats. I would say to look for Wang’s retirement by the end of this year, which will deprive it of a charismatic leader but little else. After that happens, look for the company to maintain its current direction which, as I’ve previously reported, could see it finally start to aggressively promote its 3G service if and when it signs a deal to offer an Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) iPhone for its 3G network.
Media are awash with talk of a potential major leadership shake-up at SMIC (HKEx: 981; NYSE: SMI), China’s top microchip maker, following the death earlier this week of the company’s chairman from cancer. (
the spirits’ maker, publicly listed Sichuan Chengdu Quanxing Group, take majority control of the company in a bid to take it onto the national stage. In my view, China is a market that’s really ready for a good, solid mid-tier brand, which is what Diageo specializes in through its stable of solid mid-range brands like Johnnie Walker and Smirnoff. The market is already home to a handful of super high-end brands, most notably Maotai and Wuliangye, which sell for ridiculously high prices of hundreds of dollars per bottle, and are usually pulled out when a host wants to impress his guests at a banquet but are seldom used when friends go out drinking because they’re simply too expensive. After those brands, the market is highly fragmented, with local names usually commanding most of the mid-end market. If Diageo plays its cards right, it should be lining up Shuijingfang, which is already attractively packaged and has some name recognition, as a brand of choice for white-collar Chinese when they go out for a night of drinking. If that works, I could even see Diageo eventually exporting this liquor as an exotic brand for foreigner tipplers looking for a fiery taste of China without having to pay hundreds of dollars for it.
Since being set free earlier this year by its parent Sina (Nasdaq: SINA), Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter, has taken a frenzy of initiatives to leverage its wildly popular service to become a viable stand-alone business and eventually make an IPO. I’m a big fan of Weibo, which in its short 2-year life has become a household word among Chinese youth, but I have my doubts about a new plan to launch its service in Japan with a local partner. (
up to 450 Warner movie titles to subscribers to Youku’s premium service. (
There’s been a flurry of reports in the Chinese media recently about Baidu’s (Nasdaq: BIDU) plans to roll out a mobile operating system later this year, with some saying the OS will make its debut very soon (
China’s drive to consolidate its cable industry is designed in part to spur development of state-of-the-art digital delivery networks that will someday offer Chinese consumers the wide variety of programming and other services now available through fast-developing on-demand networks in the West. But that digital dream is still very much just a distant wish, at least based on the latest transaction to make the local headlines. Chinese media are reporting that Shanghai Automotive has put its 19 percent stake in SiTV, the digital TV operator under Shanghai Media Group, China’s second largest media conglomerate, up for sale for a mere 25 million yuan, or just $3.7 million. (
As Beijing glows over the naming of US Commerce Secretary Gary Locke as the first ethnic Chinese to become US ambassador to China, the nation’s struggling solar panel sector is more focused on Locke’s replacement, longtime California power industry executive John Bryson. President Obama reportedly hand-picked Bryson, chief executive of one of California’s top two power producers, in large part for his rich background in building and operating alternate energy generating facilities, even as much of the rest of the nation shies away from such plants despite attractive government incentives. Chinese media are saying that Bryson, with his strong ties to the power generating community, has been given a mandate to breathe new life into green energy production in the US, which, if successful, could mean a nice boost for China’s solar panel makers who are now struggling with one of their worst-ever downturns as building of new solar plants worldwide slows with the fading of the global economic crisis. (
g twist media reported in April that Samsung would take a 15 percent stake in domestic TV leader TCL’s (Shenzhen: 000001) 8.5-generation LCD plant in Shenzhen. AU’s tie-up with Kunshan Longfei — under which AU will take over management of the company — should help the Taiwanese company quickly regain any lost ground on LG Display and Samsung, which have to build up their production facilities from zero. The irony in all this is that LCD sales will probably start to slow in the next few years as more and more homes already have big-screen TVs, just as all the new Chinese production is hitting the market. That will make the race even more interesting, as whoever gets to market first will probably beat the glut, at least initially.
There are a couple of interesting items in the media these last few days regarding cars, as automakers look desperately for any good news to jump-start sales that have slowed dramatically as Beijing looks to cool the economy and also ease traffic congestion. In the end, most of the hopes are destined for disappointment, as clearly economic cooling and making big city roads passable are clearly more important for China’s long-term welfare and thus will receive priority. But let’s get to the news. Perhaps most important were media reports late last week saying Beijing, under pressure from automakers alarmed by slowing sales, was considering putting the brakes on a national program to ease congestion by limiting the number of new license plates issued in major cities. (
