Friday 12 June 2009

China WindPower to invest 500m yuan in projects

China WindPower Group, whose shares soared threefold in the past six weeks, plans to plough 500 million yuan (HK$567.15 million) into 10 projects that require a combined 5 billion yuan of investment.

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Guanyu said...

China WindPower to invest 500m yuan in projects

Eric Ng
11 June 2009

China WindPower Group, whose shares soared threefold in the past six weeks, plans to plough 500 million yuan (HK$567.15 million) into 10 projects that require a combined 5 billion yuan of investment.

Completion of the projects, in which it has stakes of 25 to 60 per cent, would see its attributable capacity rise almost fourfold to 268 megawatts by March next year from 71 MW at present, said chairman Johnson Ko Chun-shun.

Investors bought renewable energy project developers’ shares aggressively in the past two months, pushing their valuations way ahead of the wider stock market, on speculation Beijing will roll out more favourable policies to encourage clean energy use.

China WindPower closed at 95 HK cents, up from about 31 HK cents in late April. The latest price represented 46.8 times the past financial year’s earnings, compared with 17 times for the Hang Seng Index.

The mainland’s installed wind power capacity roughly doubled in each of the past four years after Beijing ordered power distributors to buy all of the nation’s wind power output and offered developers tax incentives.

In spite of the explosive growth, some industry insiders said that shoddy equipment, a lack of power grid investment, poor project site selection and overly aggressive development rights bidding meant some projects never got built while others were unprofitable.

Four of China WindPower’s projects are in operation, while five others will come on stream this month. Chief executive Liu Shunxing said they all had linkages to power grids. The company yesterday unveiled a 16.7 per cent rise in net profit to HK$116.76 million in the year to March, primarily driven by a HK$28 million gain from sale of project stakes to Hong Kong utility CLP Holdings.

Profit from its wind power operation amounted to HK$15.24 million, up from HK$770,000 a year earlier. Its equipment making, plant engineering, construction and maintenance businesses turned in a profit of HK$63 million, compared with HK$66.3 million a year earlier.