Local PE funds back $1.1b take-private for China's Trina Solar

According to a regulatory filing, the consortium will pay $11.60 in cash for all outstanding American Depository Shares (ADS). This represents a 21.5% premium to the December 15 closing price, the last trading day before the offer was submitted. US-listed Trina closed up 25.2% at $10.33 on August 1.

Jifan Gao, who founded Trina in 1997 and continues to serve and chairman and CEO, is rolling his equity holding into the acquisition vehicle. He owned a 5.6% stake in the company as of April. Other consortium members include Shanghai Xingsheng Equtiy Investment & Management - previously identified as a subsidiary of Industrial Bank - Shanghai Xingjing Investment Management, Great Zhongou Asset Management, and Liuan Xinshi Asset Management.

The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2017, subject to a shareholder vote that requires two thirds support from all participating shareholders. Trina would then be de-listed from the New York Stock Exchange. The company went public in 2006, raising $98 million in its IPO and creating a liquidity event for the likes of Merrill Lynch Global Private Equity, Milestone Capital Partners and VenFin.

The company began its solar power products business in 2004 and established itself as an integrated manufacturer of ingots, wafers and solar cells for use in its own-brand photovoltaic modules. Its customers are primarily power plant developers and PV system integrators such as NVT, SunEdison, Sanshin Electronics, Solar City, FLS Energy, and Welspun Energy.

Trina has also expanded into the downstream solar projects market, completing 425 megawatts of build-to-own projects in China last year, as well as a further 210.9 MW of build-to-sell projects. It expects to complete facilities with aggregated capacity of 750-850 MW in 2016. Meanwhile, annualized in-house manufacturing capacity stood at 5,000 MW of modules in 2015.

Net sales reached $3.03 billion last year, up from $2.28 billion in 2014, while net profit rose from $61.3 million to $86.3 million over the same period.

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• Topics
• Greater China
• Buyouts
• Cleantech
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• China