GCL Poly abandons its dumb plan of selling wafer assets to investors and promoters

GCL Poly which is by far the world’s largest seller and producer of solar wafers has dropped its plan of selling its wafer manufacturing plants to a group of investors led by its promoters. The company was looking to sell its wafer units for $1.3 billion to reduce its large debt burden. The company had expanded rapidly in the last 5 years, starting from zero to become a multi-billion dollar seller of polysilicon and wafers. GCL is forecasted to sell around 14 GW of wafers this year, giving it a market share of 35% globally which is an enormous marketshare; given that the next biggest seller would have a marketshare of less than 5%. Its massive scale and low costs have driven some players such as LDK Solar (LDK) into bankruptcy, while others such as Renesola (SOL) have diversified into making solar panels.

GCL Poly is also one of the world’s largest producers of polysilicon, making more than 50,000 tons annually. Its low costs and large scale makes it a highly profitable seller and it has been reporting high profits this year with a rising share prices. Its radical plan of selling its prime wafer assets was inexplicable. Chinese government is very generous in giving loans to its favored domestic companies and then rolling them infinitely. So it seemed strange that GCL Poly would sell more than 50% of its core business. The poly part would be highly dependent on the wafer part, since it would be difficult to find buyers for such large amounts of poly externally. Most of the value addition is being done on the wafer part of the business where GCL Poly earns a good GM.

The decrease in its stock price by almost 25% in the last two months has dissuaded the management and now the company will keep the wafer assets.