Trony Solar is expected to go public this Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange and has priced its shares at between $9 and $11.
The Chinese amorphous silicon solar panel maker plans to offer up to 15 million American depositary shares, plus another 2.9 million shares to its underwriters, according to its Monday filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Trony's shareholders plan to offer 4.5 million shares.
Assuming the shares are priced at $10 per share, the company says it expects to get $134.5 million in net proceeds from its offering, or $161.7 million if the underwriters buy the additional shares.
Trony, which plans to be listed under the symbol "TRO," is set to be the second solar company to go public in the U.S. in more than a year. It would follow Specialized Technology Resources Holdings (NYSE: STRI), a Connecticut maker of encapsulants to protect solar cells inside a panel, went public on Nov. 6. Its shares opened at $10 and closed that day at $13.10 per share.
Trony has raised money from JP Morgan and Intel Capital, the investment arm of the chip giant in Santa Clara, Calif. Intel invested $20 million in Trony in 2008.
The solar panel maker said it offers products for off-grid and on-grid systems, as well as for consumer products and street lamps.
The company had 115 megawatts of annual production capacity by the end of August this year, and is expected to increase it to 145 megawatts by the end of 2009.
Its average manufacturing cost was $1.15 per watt for the fiscal year ending June 30 this year, the company said in its SEC filing. From June to September, the company lowered the cost to $1.09 per watt.
The company began production in 2006 and focused on the off-grid market. It's expanding into the on-grid market as well. A recent on-grid project that used Trony's panels was a 1-megawatt array in South Korea.
The company generated RMB 451.5 million for the fiscal year ending June 30 this year, up from RMB 272.8 million in the 2008 fiscal year, and $26.2 million in the 2007 fiscal year.
Trony posted RMB 164.9 million in net income for the fiscal year ending June 30 this year. Net income was RMB 85.5 million for fiscal 2008, and RMB 5.2 million for fiscal 2007.
For the three month between June and September this year, Trony posted a net income of RMB 72.5 million on a revenue of RMB 254.6 million. Those represented an 81.1 percent jump in revenue and 61.5 percent growth in net income from the same period a year ago, the company said.