By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent
pv magazine reports that Canadian Solar might be ready to go private, thanks to a $250 million bid from venture capital firm Lions Point.
If that latter name sounds familiar, it’s because it should be: SolarWakeup brought you the news earlier this year that Lions Point found itself embroiled in the Suniva bankruptcy, as fellow Suniva creditor SQN Financial accused it of trying to sell off parts of Suniva to eliminate the competition. What competition, you ask?
Right. They were arguing that though Suniva had not produced a module in more than a year, Canadian Solar was so worried about them as a competitor that they were trying to completely sabotage the remaining equipment at the plant, thereby keeping SQN from getting its investment in the now-bankrupt solar module manufacturer back.
So now the next plot point has unfolded: Lions Point is trying to take Canadian Solar private to … I don’t know what the SQN Financial lawyers will argue, but you an rest assured they are hovered over their desks right now getting ready for the next filing in the bankruptcy case.
Still, the offer was made. pv magazine has the details:
In a 13D filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) this week, New York-based Lion Point Capital — which holds roughly 12.3% of the Chinese-Canadian manufacturer’s shares — said it is willing to offer as much as $250 million to back the privatization bid. Shares of Canadian Solar jumped by more than 11% on Wednesday on the NASDAQ stock exchange in response to the news.
Unclear is exactly how serious the discussion is about going private or what it would mean for those companies currently installing Canadian Solar modules (probably not much for the latter). It will be interesting to see how serious Lions Point is and whether the rumored privatization actually goes through. Stay tuned.
More:
Lion Point Capital offers $250m to support Canadian Solar’s go-private bid
Creditors Spar In Court Over Suniva Solar Cell Production Assets (Full Complaint Attached)