Sungrow has secured its board’s approval to issue GDRs on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange
It plans to raise RMB 4.88 billion to fund 4 manufacturing and research projects
One of these relates to the overseas manufacturing unit for inverter equipment and energy storage product expansion
The world’s leading solar inverter and energy storage company Sungrow from China plans to list itself on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, operated by Deutsche Börse, as it seeks to raise RMB 4.88 billion ($686 million) to fund its manufacturing and research projects.
In a Shenzhen Stock Exchange announcement, the manufacturer said the Global Depositary Receipts (GDR) issued overseas will be listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in Germany. The listing, however, still needs to be registered with the China Securities Regulatory Commission and the Deutsche Börse. Its board of directors has approved the issuance plan.
Specifically, the funds raised are planned to be used for the following 4 projects of the company:
A 20 GWh advanced energy storage equipment manufacturing project in Hefei, Anhui Province
An expansion project for overseas inverter equipment and energy storage product expansion projects
A digital enhancement project, and
A research and development (R&D) center construction project in Jiangsu province’s Nanjing city.
Together, these projects are expected to incur an investment of RMB 5.56 billion ($785 million). Of this, the GDRs are targeted to bring in over 87% of the investment.
Sungrow intends to sell the GDRs globally to qualified international investors and raise the capital in USD.
The company says its current overseas inverter equipment production capacity accounts for a relatively low proportion of the overall production capacity, while it has no overseas energy storage system (ESS) capacity at present.
Sungrow explained, “In today’s global conflicts and international trade frictions, the company's global delivery capabilities and flexibility needs to be improved urgently. Overseas factories are an important part of the company's global layout and an important window for conducting international business. After the company increases the production capacity of inverter equipment and energy storage systems overseas, the proportion of its overseas production capacity will increase.”
It added that overseas expansion will enhance its global brand image, while also enabling it to actively deal with the risks of international trade protectionism and friction.
The management has not shared the intended location of the overseas inverter and ESS product expansion project but said it will be built in 2 phases. For phase I, it has already purchased 228 m² of land and obtained the overseas land certificate. It is on the lookout for around 380 m² of land under phase II.
At present, the Chinese company has the world’s ‘largest’ inverter factory, with a global annual production capacity of 330 GW, including 25 GW outside China, and 25 GW currently under construction. This includes an inverter production fab in India where it started with 3 GW and then scaled up the project to 10 GW annual capacity in 2022 (see India PV News Snippets).
As of June 2024, it had installed over 605 GW of inverter and converter equipment globally. On Wood Mackenzie’s global solar PV inverter shipment list for 2023, Huawei along with Sungrow commanded a combined 50% global market share (see 2023 Global PV Inverter Shipments Increased By 56% YoY To 536 GW AC).
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