Bottom line: Solar shares are likely to remain volatile over the next year, with current trends continuing that see Chinese companies open more offshore plants and stronger players steal share from weaker rivals.
Mixed signals from solar sector
After a brief rally to kick off the week on upbeat guidance from sector leader Canadian Solar (Nasdaq: CSIQ), Chinese solar stocks have quickly given back most of their gains on a more ominous signal from money-losing ReneSola (NYSE: SOL), which says its CFO has resigned after just over a year on the job.
Timing of the departure of Daniel Lee is somewhat coincidental, as it comes just a week after I met him and he detailed his strategy for keeping output stable and paying down debt. That strategy helped ReneSola to shrink its net loss to $2.3 million in the second quarter from a much larger $18 million in the first quarter. But that loss-cutting didn’t come without a price, as ReneSola’s solar module shipments also dropped by a third over that period. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: A new management-led privatization bid for Homeinns and many other similar recent plans could stand a 50-50 chance of failing if they don’t complete the process before China’s stock market rally ends.
Homeinns joins privatization queue
Leading budget hotel chain Homeinns (Nasdaq: HMIN) has become the latest US-listed Chinese company to receive a buyout offer, capping a record week that has seen at least 4 such bids. In the past, 4 privatizations in a 6-month period would be considered big, even though such bids have been coming at a slow trickle over the last 3 years for Chinese companies whose shares have languished on Wall Street. But that tickle has turned into a flood these last 2 months, fueled mostly by greed, as company owners look enviously at China’s rallying stock markets that have more than doubled over the last year. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: An ongoing wave of buyout offers for US-listed Chinese firms is being funded by speculative money that will quickly evaporate when China’s stock market rally fizzles, causing some deals to collapse when that happens.
Gamblers fund privatization wave
It’s a new day, which means it’s time to take a look at the latest US-listed Chinese companies receiving privatization offers from opportunistic investors looking for bargains. Today it’s data center operator 21Vianet (Nasdaq: VNET) and beleaguered social networking site (SNS) operator Renren (NYSE: RENN) that are headed for the exit door.
I’ve been writing about this recent flurry of privatizations for the last few months, which is quickly turning into a flood as investors scramble to assemble deals to buy companies whose shares have languished on Wall Street. The idea is that these companies would be far more appreciated, and therefore get much higher valuations, from investors in their home China market, where an ongoing stock market rally has seen the main Shanghai index more than double over the last year. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: The ongoing privatization wave of Chinese firms abandoning New York listings is likely at or near a peak, with gaming and solar companies as some of the likeliest candidates to make new announcements.
E-House heads for exit door
The exodus from New York by neglected Chinese companies marches on this week, with online real estate company E-House (NYSE: EJ) becoming the latest to receive a management-led buyout offer. At the same time, online dating site Jiayuan (Nasdaq: DATE) has announced that a suitor who made a similar offer for the company in March has sharply raised its bid, following complaints that the original offer grossly undervalued the company.
When the history books are written, the second quarter of 2015 could well go down as the height of a wave of privatization bids for New York-listed Chinese firms, whose shares have languished in the last few years due to lack of interest from US investors. At the same time, many of those companies are casting an envious eye on China’s rallying stock markets, and are almost certainly hoping to re-list at home in the future. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: China’s securities regulator should work with overseas-listed Chinese firms to chart a well-defined path for them to return home to list, to encourage such movement and avoid burdensome bureaucracy.
Chinese “turtles” return home to list
A growing trend that is seeing Chinese firms abandon US listings to return home gained big momentum last week, when 2 more companies announced plans to de-list from New York and a third that privatized 2 years ago moved close to a China re-listing.
In the first category, medical devices maker Mindray Medical (NYSE: MR) announced a management led buy-out offer late in the week, which was followed a day later by a similar offer for solar panel maker JA Solar (Nasdaq: JASO). Meantime, formerly New York-listed outdoor advertising specialist Focus Media took a major step toward becoming the first Chinese company to re-list at home by injecting itself to an existing Shenzhen-traded company. Read Full Post…
The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on June 6-8. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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Three China Solar-Panel Groups Lose EU-Tariff Exemptions (English article)
China Resources Expands Vanguard Convenience Stores, Targets 6,300 by 2020 (Chinese article)
JA Solar (Nasdaq: JASO) Receives Going Private Proposal at $9.69 Per ADS (GlobeNewswire)
Lenovo (HKEx: 992) Parent Legend Gets HK Approval for up to $2 Bln IPO: Sources (English article)
WoWo (Nasdaq: WOWO), JMU to Merge, Creating Top Online Foodservice Firm (PRNewswire)
The following press releases and media reports about Chinese companies were carried on May 26. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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Didi Kuaidi Meet Driver Opposition Post-Merger, May Target Q4 IPO (Chinese article)
Foreign Drugmakers Face More Pressure to Lower Prices in China (English article)
Bottom line: A new wave of overseas investment by Chinese solar panel makers should ease western complaints of unfair state-support and provide a more solid foundation for the sector’s longer-term development.
Solar panel makers migrate overseas
As a settlement to avoid anti-dumping tariffs for Chinese solar panels exported to Europe showed signs of unraveling last week, a new report emerged that showed a more positive trend for a sector that has become the subject of nonstop trade wars over the last 4 years. That newer trend has seen a growing number of embattled Chinese solar panel makers set up overseas factories, helping them to avoid punitive anti-dumping tariffs imposed by the US on their domestically produced goods. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: The recent plunge in solar stocks is the result of panic selling due to falling oil prices, meaning the shares could rebound sharply once the sell-off subsides.
Falling oil prices cast cloud over solar stocks
US investors were showing signs of new energy indigestion in the shortened trading day after Thanksgiving, dumping stocks of all the major solar panel makers in a messy post-holiday sell-off. With no major news from any of the companies, the driving force behind the sell-off appears to be the recent plunge in oil prices, which hit new 4 years lows late last week after OPEC declined to cut its daily output quotas.
Investors appear to be worrying that falling oil prices will dampen enthusiasm for building new solar plants, since lower oil prices mean solar power will be less competitive with more traditional power sources derived from fossil fuels. The only problem with that logic is that solar power was never competitive with fossil fuels to begin with, meaning solar stocks could be getting punished for no good reason. Read Full Post…
Chinese solar panel makers have taken an important step to solving their ongoing trade spat with the west by formally launching a private sector trade association to speak on their behalf. The move gives the panel makers their first truly commercial representative to discuss the matter with peers in the US and Europe, providing a better alternative to the government-backed groups that previously spoke for them. Read Full Post…
Investors were clearly focused on the bottom line in the newly released earnings for solar panel maker Trina (NYSE: TSL) and leading microblogging site Weibo (Nasdaq: WB), which are both trying hard to show they can post consistent profits on a long-term basis. For Trina the news was strong, as the company posted its third consecutive quarterly profit after several years of losses during a prolonged sector downturn. The prognosis was less stellar for Weibo, which posted a loss for the period even though the figure showed positive trends. Read Full Post…
