(Graphics/GT)
Move may interest investors, but it's unlikely to help company move back into black, analysts warn
After shares in Hanergy Thin Film Power Group (HTF) were suspended in May 2015, the fortunes of founder Li Hejun, who was briefly ranked as China's richest man, went into eclipse.
Now, he's betting on fully solar-powered vehicles to turn things around.
During a press conference in Beijing on Saturday, Li, who is also chairman of the Hong Kong-listed solar technology company, drove the Hanergy Solar R sports car, one of four solar-powered car models, around the venue.
The "test drive" was meant to showcase the achievements of Hanergy's mobile energy strategy, which was proposed by Li in February 2015.
The strategy, which aims to integrate thin-film solar cells with variety of products such as mobiles, backpacks and cars, is expected to be something that Hanergy can use to popularize its thin-film solar technology.
Li said during the press conference that with flexible and light-weight solar modules, Hanergy's zero-emission vehicles can get power directly from the sun without depending on charging posts.
However, analysts cast a wary eye on Hanergy's new cars.
"Those cars won't get a warm reception among domestic consumers, who will be concerned about the effectiveness and sustainability of the solar power required to drive these cars," Feng Shiming, a senior industry analyst with Shanghai-based Menutor Consulting, told the Global Times Sunday.
The vehicles will have 3.5 to 7.5 square meters of solar cells to collect the sun's rays, and the company claims the cars can travel about 80 kilometers a day on that basis. But Feng said that's just a laboratory estimate, and the real distance may be only half as much.
In addition, there's a lesson to be drawn from battery-powered vehicles, which have yet to be broadly accepted among drivers after years of development and promotion, said analysts.
Lin Boqiang, director of the Center for Energy Economics Research at Xiamen University, agreed that consumers aren't likely to take to the new cars. More likely, he said, it's a strategy to pique shareholders' interest in HTF.
"HTF is very likely getting prepared for the resumption of its shares trading on the Hong Kong bourse," Lin told the Global Times Sunday.
On May 20, 2015, HTF's share price plunged 47 percent in a short period, leading to a trade halt and investigation by the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission. The Hong Kong regulators haven't specified what they wanted to investigate, and the shares have yet to resume trading.
Li's net worth stood at $3.2 billion on Sunday as of press time, according to a real-time ranking maintained by Forbes. According to a China Rich List issued by Hurun in February 2015, the 48-year-old Li was China's richest man with personal wealth of $26 billion, overtaking Dalian Wanda Group's Wang Jianlin and e-commerce tycoon Jack Ma Yun.
HTF lost HK$12 billion ($1.5 billion) in 2015, compared with a net profit of HK$3 billion in 2014. The company attributed the loss in part to the negative impact of Hong Kong's investigation and the continued suspension of share trading, according to its annual report.
At the beginning of 2015, HTF was under fire for its intragroup dealings with parent company Hanergy Holding Group.
Most of the subsidiary's revenue since 2010 was from equipment sales to Hanergy Holding, and a large volume of contracts hadn't been paid as of 2013, according to media reports.
