Trina Solar Investors Overwhelmingly Vote In Favor Of Privatization
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Trina Solar, the world’s leading solar PV manufacturer, has reported the results of a shareholder vote on whether to accept the privatization offer made by the company’s own Chairman and Chief Executive.
In a move a year in the making, Trina Solar’s investors have voted overwhelmingly in favor of privatization and de-listing from the New York Stock Exchange. More than 95% of the company’s shareholders voted in favor of the move.
In December of 2015, Trina Solar announced that it had received a buyout offer from its Chairman and Chief Executive, Mr Jifan Gao, in conjunction with Shanghai Xingsheng Equity Investment & Management. In August of this year, the company announced that it had entered into a “definitive agreement” to see the company “acquired by an investor consortium in an all-cash transaction implying an equity value of [Trina Solar] of approximately $1.1 billion.”
No specific timeline has been given for the privatization of the company, though the company did state that “The parties to the Merger Agreement are continuing to work diligently towards satisfaction of all other closing conditions set forth in the agreement.”
The future is cloudy, but a note in the original proposal explaining that “the Acquisition will provide superior value to the Company’s shareholders” leads Yali Jiang, an analyst with Bloomberg New Energy Finance, to theorize that the company is looking to gain higher value on an alternate market. Speaking to PV Tech this week, Jiang said:
“The main intention is probably to re-list at a higher market value on other platforms in mainland China and Hong Kong. Besides, it is now more challenging for solar manufacturing companies to issue new equity offerings in the US, as US investors are becoming cautious about solar stocks after losing money on several high profile examples.”
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