Yingli slumps after solar manufacturer warns of bankruptcy

[NEW YORK] Yingli Green Energy Holding Co, once the world's biggest solar manufacturer, plunged the most in more than four months after signaling it may be teetering toward bankruptcy.

Yingli declined 13 per cent to US$3.98 at 12:11 pm in New York, the most intraday since Dec 17.

That followed an 8.1 per cent drop Friday after the Chinese solar company acknowledged "substantial doubt as to its ability to continue as a going concern."

Yingli said Friday that it's still in talks with creditors about repaying loans due in two weeks, and its losses for 2015 probably would widen because of a series of write-offs, the sliding price of solar panels and declining shipments caused by a shortage of working capital.

"It looks like they are not getting bailed out and they will need to file for bankruptcy," Gordon Johnson, an analyst at Axiom Capital Management, said in an e-mail Monday.

Yingli hasn't reported a quarterly profit since 2011 and has been in breach of loan covenants for at least a year. It has been kept alive by state-backed lenders led by China Development Bank Corp.

The company said in April it would be "very difficult" to repay 1.4 billion yuan (S$290 million) of notes due May 12.

BLOOMBERG