Applied Materials in $1.9bn solar coup
By Chris Nuttall in San Francisco /March 5 2008
Source: Financial Times (ft.com)
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/24e748fe-ea57-11dc-b3c9-0000779fd2ac.html
Applied Materials’ gamble on becoming a major supplier to the solar panel industry appeared to have paid off on Tuesday when it won a $1.9bn order, the biggest ever for its production equipment. Analysts said the deal for the world’s largest supplier of equipment for the semiconductor industry was about five times bigger than any order it had ever received in its core business.
Applied said in a regulatory filing that the deal was struck with “a privately held corporation outside the US”, but Citigroup analysts said they believed it was a Chinese government consortium planning to build a “solar city” in Suzhou, a city of more than 2m people 40 miles from Shanghai.
Applied shares rose more than 7 per cent to close at $20.32 in New York. The Silicon Valley company expanded into the solar energy field in 2006 after it acquired Applied Films, a supplier of thin-film deposition equipment for solar cells, for a net $300m.
Citigroup said it believed the order was to provide equipment for about 15 production lines to be installed from this June. Applied said the equipment was expected to produce an annual output of solar photovoltaic modules capable of generating electricity on a gigawatt scale.