Isovoltaic AG, the world’s biggest maker of back sheets for solar modules, canceled its 378 million- euro ($548 million) initial public offering as Europe’s debt woes sap investor demand, trumping a solar rally on the back of Japan’s nuclear crisis.
Isovoltaic blamed “recent developments in the European IPO market” for halting the deal in Vienna, according to a statement from the Lebring, Austria-based company yesterday.
The manufacturer of protective backing for solar panels joined U.K. vacuum-pumps maker Edwards Group Plc, Indian billionaire Gautam Thapar’s BILT Paper Plc and Internet-payment provider Skrill Group Plc that deferred London IPOs this month citing a lack of investor demand. That’s the biggest monthly number since November 2007, when three IPOs were pulled in the financial center, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Isovoltaic had tried to sell equity as solar stocks rallied after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami in Japan knocked out cooling systems at a Tokyo Electric Power Co. reactor.
China, India, Germany and Britain said they’d review the events before moving forward with new atomic power stations, stirring speculation that they may provide more incentives for solar, wind and geothermal energy.
The sale of 18 million existing shares owned by Austrian industrialist Stanislaus Turnauer, or 45 percent of Isovoltaic, would have been the biggest European IPO for a solar-power company since June 2008.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), Credit Suisse Group AG (CSGN), Morgan Stanley (MS) and Erste Group Bank AG (EBS) were joint global coordinators and book runners for the sale. Isovoltaic’s book was to close yesterday and shares had been intended to start trading in Vienna today.
Others shelved
Isovoltaic is not the only European solar company to cancel an IPO, with three others shelved in the last 17 months. Denmark’s Scan Energy A/S postponed its 158 million-euro sale in Frankfurt in December 2009 and Spain’s Grupo T-Solar Global SA and Renovalia Energy SA in April and May dropped IPOs to raise an estimated 280 million euros and 153 million euros, respectively.
The IPO would have been the largest since Germany’s SMA Solar Technology AG, also a maker of solar-power components, raised 362 million euros in June 2008.
Five smaller companies have held IPOs in Europe since SMA’s, raising a total of about $120 million from initial offerings in Frankfurt, Istanbul, Paris, Zurich and Milan. That compares with 16 solar IPOs in Asia and two in the U.S. in the same time period, according to Bloomberg data.
