(Bloomberg) -- Swiss solar panel maker Meyer Burger Technology AG’s shares are in free fall after failed plans to set up a cell factory in the US put the company on track for restructuring.
Meyer Burger shares fell nearly 18% Tuesday, after closing 45% lower on Monday, when the company announced it was putting its plans for a plant in Colorado on pause. The precipitous decline leaves the company now worth around $73 million, down from a peak of nearly $2.7 billion in February 2023.
The company is emblematic of the wider state of the solar panel industry in Europe and the US with the near hegemony of cheap Chinese products in the global market. Despite government support, Meyer Burger has continued to stumble and has now nearly run out of options.
“There is no way out for Meyer Burger,” said Eugen Perger, analyst at Research Partners AG. “The now failed US plans were the last straw that the company was clutching at.”
Earlier this year, the firm said it planned to shut production at a German plant that it said was uncompetitive with Chinese imports. The company had hoped to shift its focus to the US, where it could access subsidies under the Inflation Reduction Act.
But on Monday, those ambitions appeared to unravel after Meyer Burger announced that its plans to build a factory in Colorado Springs were on hold because it was not financially viable. Earlier this month, President Joe Biden’s administration expanded the amount of solar panels that can be imported duty-free.
Meyer Burger will continue with a plant it’s developing in Arizona and plans to keep an existing site in Thalheim, Germany.
The European solar industry is under enormous pressure from cheaper offers from China. Production in that country, the biggest producer and consumers of the technology, is actually outstripping demand, leading some Chinese companies to declare bankruptcy.
Other module producers like Germany’s Solarwatt GmbH have also said it will halt production at the end of August.
--With assistance from Petra Sorge and William Mathis.
©2024 Bloomberg L.P.
