A prominent Chinese billionaire, in partnership with one of the country’s top sportswear brands, will be making a pretty substantial investment of about $140 million into the noted solar energy project developer SPI Solar, according to recent reports.
Said billionaire — the founder of the online gaming firm Giant Interactive Group, Shi Yuzhu — will be, along with the sportswear brand China Dongxiang Company Limited, making the investment via the purchase of around $35 million in stock and $35 million in bonds + stock options for a total of around $70 million each.
“We are very pleased to announce this investment in SPI led by Shi Yuzhu and Dongxiang, which underscores their strong confidence in the company and its growth potential,” stated SPI Solar’s chairman Xiaofeng Peng, when asked about the deal. “We believe this additional capital will enable us to continue SPI’s impressive growth trajectory and benefit all of our shareholders.”
Given that Shi Yuzhu currently possesses a net worth of somewhere around $3.2 billion, the investment is a pretty significant one for him, but not a dangerous one (on the off-chance that SPI Solar’s future isn’t as bright as it currently appears).
Yuzhu is currently the 36th-richest (as far as publicly revealed wealth goes anyways) person in China. He has seen his share of ups and downs as far as financial bets go, though — actually losing a big chunk of his money in the real estate crash before then rebuilding it via a health products business and Giant Interactive Group — so him backing SPI isn’t a touch of gold or anything like that.
While he is still on the board of Giant, Yuzhu is technically retired, and makes his investments via his relatively new firm, Hulk Energy. This firm currently has the goal of investing $650 million into solar PV projects in the near future.
Source: https://cleantechnica.com/2014/12/29/china-dongxiang-company-prominent-china-billionaire-investing-us140-million-spi-solar/
Comments are closed.
