LDK Solar Co’s disclosure that it’s now about a third of its peak size shows the scale of Chairman Peng Xiaofeng’s efforts to retain control of the Chinese solar manufacturer with more than $3 billion in debt.
The company had about 9,800 employees at the end of last year, Chief Financial Officer Jack Lai said during a conference call yesterday. That’s down 29 percent from the prior quarter and from 28,000 in the middle of 2011. LDK reduced its solar- cell manufacturing capacity last year by 89 percent.
The reductions are part of Peng’s effort to secure credit lines and equity investors to help LDK shoulder its debt load, including $240 million due in June. The company reported yesterday its seventh straight quarter of losses and cash of $98.3 million, the lowest in three years. Deficits of that scale tipped the biggest unit of LDK’s larger competitor, Suntech Power Holdings Co, into bankruptcy last month.
“The biggest concern people have is that LDK will be the next Suntech and go into some form of bankruptcy,” Edwin Mok, an analyst at Needham & Co in San Francisco, said in an interview yesterday. “The main thesis is that they don’t have that money.”
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