A CHANCE TO BUY A SOLAR COMPANY CHEAP

First Solar Never So Cheap in Takeover Boon for Energy: Real M&A; For acquirers willing to wager on the future of solar power, First Solar Inc. has gotten $22 billion cheaper.
Tara Lachapelle, Christopher Martin and Richard Weiss (w/Rachel Layne, Sarah Rabil, and Daniel Hauck), December 25, 2011 (Bloomberg News)

"First Solar has tumbled 76 percent this year, the biggest drop in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Inde, as…[it] shifted its focus to large power plants. Once worth $25 billion, First Solar was valued [at the end of 2011] as low as $2.64 billion…The world’s largest maker of thin-film solar panels may now attract takeover interest from General Electric Co. or Siemens AG on the expectation that demand will increase…during the next decade as prices become more competitive with fossil fuels and other forms of electricity…

"… First Solar’s stock…plunged 25 percent since Dec. 14 when it reduced 2011 profit and sales forecasts, projected earnings next year that missed analysts’ estimates and said it will fire about 100 employees in the second restructuring in six weeks. The company is reorganizing to focus on large utility-scale power plants instead of smaller, rooftop installations after ousting its chief executive officer in October and replacing him with Michael Ahearn, the founder and chairman…"

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"Plunging prices for solar panels have eroded profit margins across the industry as manufacturers ramped up production capacity faster than demand increased, creating a global glut of supply. The spot price of solar panels…[fell 47 percent in 2011]…First Solar uses cadmium-telluride in its thin-film panels, which require less time and energy to manufacture than the more common ones based on silicon semiconductors…

"The market for solar power surged 67 percent [in 2010] to $55 billion on new projects with a capacity of about 18,000 megawatts…New solar installations may reach 24,000 megawatts [for 2011] and hold steady at about that rate [in 2012]…[and] climb to as much as 34,700 megawatts in 2013…"