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Serious money.
Some analysts are good, some are lucky some are both. Just this morning we had Mark Bachman making calls from his new digs at Auriga USA: "Auriga Picks Up Solar Coverage on Eight Stocks; Assigns Buys to TSL, YGE and SOLF". In addition to the "Buy" on Trina he had a hold on Suntech.
In a December post, "Trina, Belle of the Solar Ball (TSL; LDK)", I noted en passant:
...Another smart move was raising $120 Mil. in July '08 even though it spanked the stock:Here's the latest, from Reuters:
Trina Prices, Market Slices (TSL)This is the flush. The stock was recently at $28.00 after bottoming at $26.58. As we said when they announced the financing "Good idea, bad timing".TSL is a favorite of the Chinese government who helped arrange this hunk o'loot, September:
From the press release via Yahoo Finance:
Trina Solar Prices $120 Million of Convertible Senior Notes and Up to 4,073,194 American Depositary Shares
Trina Solar receives US$304 million loan facility to support 500MW capacity expansion project. And: "Says Solar Credit Crunch to Ease Next Year (TSL)
* Solar firms to tap loans for domestic, overseas expansion
* Loan agreement part of strategic partnership with CDB (Adds background)HONG KONG, April 14 (Reuters) - China's top solar power equipment makers Suntech Power Holdings (STP.N) and Trina Solar (TSL.N) have signed framework agreements with China Development Bank (CDB) [CHDB.UL], giving them access to a combined 80 billion yuan ($11.72 billion) in loans, company officials said.
Suntech, China's largest solar cell and panel maker, signed an agreement with CDB for up to 50 billion yuan ($7.33 billion) worth of loans over five years, Rory Macpherson, Suntech's director for investor relations, told Reuters on Wednesday.
"It's a non-binding agreement," he said. "It's not related to specific projects ... it could be used for capacity expansion. It essentially shows the strong partnership between Suntech and China Development Bank," he said, adding that the agreement was signed in the past two weeks.
Trina Solar forged a 30 billion yuan ($4.40 billion) loan agreement with CDB that will last through 2015, Chief Financial Officer Terry Wang said.
While global peers have limited access to cheap state loans, Chinese renewable energy companies are getting a boost from Beijing as they win clean technology projects around the world [ID:nHKG361180]. Much of that is via loans from big state banks.
Such deals are unfolding as China aggressively develops its renewable energy sector and as its companies play catch-up with bigger global peers including German solar cell producer Q-Cells AG (QCEG.DE) and Spanish wind farm operator Iberdrola (IBE.MC), which have built up solid track records, also with help from more than a decade of government subsidies.
"As we accelerate global reach to Europe and the U.S. and as we widen our base among top markets, we could use the loan for market expansion," said Wang. "We're looking at projects overseas."
He said Trina Solar hoped to boost its share of the solar products market to 9 percent this year, up from 6.2 percent last year, adding, "Next year, we're aiming for a double-digit expansion....MORE
