Baofang Jin, chairman and chief executive officer of JA Solar has, together with the Jinglong Group Co., Ltd, of which Jin is the sole director, offered to buy out the solar PV module manufacturer. Jin currently owns around 15.6% of the Chinese company.
In a preliminary non-binding proposal letter, he has offered to pay $9.69 per American Depositary or $1.938 per ordinary share in cash, subject to certain conditions. Reuters reports that this totals around $489 million.
"This price represents a premium of approximately 20% to the Companys closing price on June 4, 2015," Jin wrote. He added that he intends to finance the takeover through a combination of debt and equity capital.
Reuters wrote, however, that according to S&P Capital IQ analyst Angelo Zino, Jin had undervalued the company. "I think the offer price grossly undervalues the company given our views of growth prospects," Zino told the news outlet.
In a statement released, JA Solar has said it will form a special committee comprised of independent directors to consider Jins takeover bid.
On the back of the SEC filing on Friday, June 5, JA Solars shares increased 12%.
In recent weeks, JA Solar has made a number of expansion announcements, including a 400 MW deal with German PV equipment supplier, Schmid Group for several texturing and edge isolation tools, and automation equipment.
It also entered a partnership with Essel Infraprojects Limited to set up a 500 MW PV cell and module manufacturing facility in India.
In Malaysia, meanwhile, the Chinese manufacturer announced its intention to open a 400 MW PV cell plant. It said the plant, to be located in Penang, will be ideally sited to serve key solar markets in south and south east Asia.
Regarding the companys Q1 earnings, the manufacturer saw its net income dive, both Q/Q and Y/Y, to RMB 35,529 million (around US$5.7 million), from RMB 153,082 million in Q4 2014 and RMB 82,634 million in Q1 2014. Gross margin was 16.1%, compared to 16.7% in Q1 2014, and 15.5% in Q4.
Popular content
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
Share
Becky Beetz
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.