Yingli trades down in first day on NYSE

On its first day of trading, Chinese solar company Yingli has dropped 34 cents, or 3.1 percent, to $10.65 in midday trading on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

The company had priced its American Depository shares at $11 a share, the lower end of its expected range.

Yingli Green Energy Holding Company (NYSE: YGE) is a vertically integrated manufacturers of photovoltaic products in China.

the Cleantech Group first reported the company's planned IPO in Still time to start a China solar co.?

The offering consists of 26,550,000 ADSs to be issued by Yingli Green Energy and 2,450,000 ADSs offered by a selling shareholder in a firm offering and an expected 4,350,000 ADSs to be offered by the selling shareholders in a green shoe offering.

The IPO raised $319 million, excluding expenses.

Yingli expects to use most of the proceeds to increase its equity interest in its operating subsidiary, Baoding Tianwei Yingli New Energy Resources co., or Tianwei Yingli.

Other proceeds will then be used to fund expansion of Tianwei Yingli’s manufacturing capacity for the production of polysilicon ingots and wafers, PV cells and PV modules to 400 megawatts each by the end of 2008, as well as for purchases of raw materials and general corporate purposes, according to the company.

Yingli Green Energy is to not receive any proceeds from the sale of the ADSs by the selling shareholders.

Goldman Sachs (Asia) was the global coordinator, with Goldman Sachs (Asia) and UBS AG as joint bookrunners and Piper Jaffray and CIBC World Markets as co-managers for the offering.

Yingli operates through its principal operating subsidiary Tianwei Yingli in Baoding, Hebei Province, 85 kilometers south of Beijing.

Since 2002, when Yingli Green Energy began production of polysilicon wafers, its annual production capacity has expanded from three megawatts of PV modules to 95 megawatts of polysilicon ingots and wafers, 90 megawatts of photovoltaic, or PV, cells and 100 megawatts of PV modules. It has further expansion plans.

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