A Qatari investor is ready to help pull the highly indebted SolarWorld out of its financial crisis, reports Reuters. "We will publish the size of the potential stake at the extraordinary general meeting [EGM]," SolarWorld CEO Frank Asbeck told the news agency.
Asbeck declined to say who the investor is. However, quoting a source close to the process, Reuters said that Qatar Solar Technologies a joint venture between SolarWorld (29% stake) and the Qatar Foundation (70% stake) was ready to take a "minority stake" in the German company. The Qatar Development Bank owns the remaining 1% stake.
This week, SolarWorld published its preliminary 2012 financial figures. Overall, it expects to record a loss of almost 0.5 billion, while revenues have been calculated at around 606 million. The final results are scheduled to be published at the end of this month.
Shortly afterwards, SolarWorld will announce the agreement of its debt restructuring with its most important creditors. A comprehensive debt to equity swap is planned, where, most notably, the existing shareholders will lose almost their entire share and the creditors will hold a majority stake in the business.
"The requirement of the shareholder protection will take management into account," Asbeck further told Reuters. After the restructuring, his SolarWorld share will fall from 28 to 1.4%.
With reference to the source close to the process, Reuters added that Asbeck was willing to again invest fresh capital into the company. He expects that all capital measures will be signed and sealed by the autumn. Then, total debt would decrease from the current 1.2 billion to 400 million.
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
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.