The Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (HKSFC) has formally suspended Hanergy Thin Film Power Group.
The Hong Kong stock exchange had already halted trading in shares of the company but has now been ordered to suspend them by HKSFC, which has been investigating the company.
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The move by HKSFC is not a common one and makes the prospect of a prompt resumption of trading less likely.
Shares in Hanergy TFP surged in the first quarter of the year after a number of deals with other parts of the Hanergy Group were announced. The company’s value reached a high that breifly made its chief Li Hejun China’s wealthiest person. A subsequent collapse in share price has been followed by the cancellation of a 900MW order for thin-film production equipment, the suspension of share trading and the investigation by the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission. Hejun had originally denied that the company was under investigation.
In early July, the influential Guggenheim solar fund announced it had divested from Hanergy.
Finlay Colville, head of Solar Intelligence at PV Tech’s publisher Solar Media, warned that the ongoing financial turmoil is distracting from core operational issues at the company.
“The ongoing regulatory saga with Hanergy certainly leaves more questions than answers, but is clouding the bigger issue that has been the focus of attention on Hanergy from the start – can they manufacture solar panels? This has been the key question ever since the company decided to pursue the amorphous silicon thin-film route, just at the time the market for that technology was in sharp decline.
“Another more worrying issue is that the financial announcements deflect from Hanergy’s CIGS activities, and in particular Solibro. Of all the acquired thin-film manufacturing entities under the Hanergy empire, Solibro was by far the most credible from a manufacturing standpoint, and expansions announced from Hanergy last year on the CIGS side appeared to be aligned to ramping a known manufacturing recipe for the first time,” added Colville. “One can only imagine the end-market damage being done to the Solibro operations, purely from a risk perspective, as customers and the public at large is being inundated with constant coverage related to financial and accounting based issues at Hanergy.”
