Panda Green warns of $500m annual loss

Share

If any of the various Chinese state-owned bodies forced to bail-out Hong Kong.listed solar developer Panda Green was expecting to extract a profit from the business, it appears they may face a long wait.

The scale of the turnaround operation facing recently appointed CEO Zhang Ping was again emphasized today when the developer issued a profit warning.

Coal industry veteran Ping, whose company is due to announce its full-year 2019 results on March 30, will be digesting an expected net loss of RMB3.6 billion (US$506 million) from the year, up from an already shocking RMB454 million a year earlier.

FIT payments

Popular content

That predicted loss will come despite revenues having climbed 7% year-on-year; earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization having risen 12%, financing costs having fallen 6% and Panda Green shedding almost 16% of its generation portfolio as it busily attempted to pay down huge debts.

The company cited reduced feed-in tariff payments for its Chinese solar and hydropower facilities, specifying PV payments had fallen to RMB0.4/kWh (US$0.056) in the Zone 1 which covers northern China and Inner Mongolia, RMB0.45 in the west and central China Zone 2 and RMB0.55 in the Zone 3 which covers the rest of the nation.

Panda Green, which held a 2 GW Chinese solar portfolio at the end of the year, is more than 74% owned by Chinese state entities after Beijing Energy Holding Co Ltd completed a twice-delayed HK$1.79 billion (US$231 million) acquisition of a 32% stake in the business last month.

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.