Panda Green warns of $500m yearly loss

• The bailed-out Hong Kong-listed PV developer has actually advised its staying independent investors of a thumping bottom line for 2019 as it prepares to expose its outcomes at the end of the month.

If any of the various Chinese state-owned bodies forced to bail-out Hong Kong.listed solar developer Panda Green was expecting to extract a profit from the business, it appears they may face a long wait.

The scale of the turnaround operation facing recently appointed CEO Zhang Ping was again emphasized today when the developer issued a profit warning.

Coal industry veteran Ping, whose company is due to announce its full-year 2019 results on March 30, will be digesting an expected net loss of RMB3.6 billion (US$506 million) from the year, up from an already shocking RMB454 million a year earlier.

FIT payments

That predicted loss will come despite revenues having climbed 7% year-on-year; earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization having risen 12%, financing costs having fallen 6% and Panda Green shedding almost 16% of its generation portfolio as it busily attempted to pay down huge debts.

The company cited reduced feed-in tariff payments for its Chinese solar and hydropower facilities, specifying PV payments had fallen to RMB0.4/kWh (US$0.056) in the Zone 1 which covers northern China and Inner Mongolia, RMB0.45 in the west and central China Zone 2 and RMB0.55 in the Zone 3 which covers the rest of the nation.

Panda Green, which held a 2 GW Chinese solar portfolio at the end of the year, is more than 74% owned by Chinese state entities after Beijing Energy Holding Co Ltd completed a twice-delayed HK$1.79 billion (US$231 million) acquisition of a 32% stake in the business last month.