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non mi riesce di incollarlo senza che poi chieda la registrazione.. cmq, faccio copia incolla in inglese. In parole povere, vendono ad un nuovo gruppo per 100 milioni di euro. Domanda? quanto è il nominale rimasto in giro delle nostre obbligazioni?
Solarworld resurrected with the help of Qatari investment
Group agrees to sell its key assets for about €100m to Qatari-German joint venture
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Solarworld, a former stock market darling that became one of the biggest casualties of Germany’s ill-fated solar boom, has been resurrected from insolvency with the help of investors from Qatar. The company has agreed to sell its key assets — including its two manufacturing plants in Germany — for about €100m to a Qatari-German joint venture set up by Frank Asbeck, the founder of Solarworld, and Qatar Solar Technologies. The new company, Solarworld Industries, was formally unveiled in Berlin on Thursday. It plans to keep alive the production of photovoltaic panels in Germany, despite fierce competition from low-cost makers in China that has decimated the European industry in recent years. “We have learnt our lesson,” Mr Asbeck said in an interview. The new company, he added, would focus more than before on high-end products such as dual-face solar panels, which capture the sunlight also on the back of the panel. This allows them to produce up to 30 per cent more electricity. In addition, Solarworld Industries would have a “much reduced cost base”, Mr Asbeck said. The new company will keep only 500 of the formerly 1,700 workers, but aims to reach the same annual production capacity as Solarworld — equivalent to 1GW — within the next 18 months. Solarworld Industries, which will be unlisted, was targeting annual revenues of €500m in two years, he added. The resurrection of Solarworld adds another twist to a story of corporate rise and fall that made the company and Mr Asbeck household names in Germany. At its high point, in late 2007, Solarworld was worth more than €4bn and briefly flirted with entry into the Dax, Germany’s blue-chip stock market index. Mr Asbeck, who became known as Germany’s Sonnenkönig, or Sun King, had a high media profile. In 2008, he also made international waves when he announced plans to buy ailing carmaker Opel from GM — though the deal never came to fruition. Solarworld, along with most of Germany’s once mighty solar industry, ultimately fell victim to price competition from China. “The old model of Solarworld worked in general but not at a time when big oversupply from China was destroying competition. There was a big disruption in prices worldwide. Prices fell 25 per cent, and we were quite good at compensating this by reducing our costs also by 25 per cent. But we weren’t quick enough.” Under pressure from Solarworld and other European manufacturers, the European Commission imposed anti-dumping duties on Chinese solar-panel makers in 2013, which were prolonged earlier this year. The duties, however, failed to halt a slide in prices that was driven by massive overcapacity in China. Mr Asbeck said the EU measures were never “efficiently enforced”. Qatar Solar Technologies, which has been a shareholder in Solarworld since 2013, said it hoped the revival of the company would help further its own ambitions to build a domestic solar industry that covers all parts of the supply chain. “We in Qatar also want to go down the road of vertical integration,” said Khalid Al Hajri, the chief executive. “We are going to expand in our area and we need their [Solarworld Industries] knowledge and know-how to be transferred to Qatar.”