(Yicai Global) March 15 -- Boamax Technologies Group, a Chinese photovoltaic equipment supplier, said net profit jumped 147 percent last year and announced a private placement of shares to raise funds to build two next-generation solar cell factories. Its stock price rose.

Net profit was CNY30.4 million (USD4.4 million) in the 12 months ended Dec. 31, according to the Suzhou-based firm’s earnings report released yesterday. Revenue rose 7.8 percent to CNY684 million (USD99.3 million).

Boamax’s expansion in the new energy business has shown initial results, becoming a new profit growth point, the firm added.

Revenue from the business, which includes new energy vehicle charging and battery swap facilities and PV support equipment, was CNY156 million, accounting for about 23 percent of total income. It was the first time the firm reported separate revenue for its new energy business.

Shares of Boamax [SHE: 002514] closed 1.6 percent up at CNY11.34 (USD1.65) apiece today. The stock has climbed over 150 percent since the company said last May that it was entering the solar cell business.

On March 13, Boamax unveiled a private placement plan to raise as much as CNY3 billion (USD436 million) from up to 35 investors to fund the construction of two high-efficiency heterojunction solar cell plants in Huaiyuan, Anhui Province, and Otok Banner, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

The firm announced in May and November last year it would spend CNY1.7 billion and CNY1.9 billion to build two heterojunction solar cell factories in Huaiyuan and Otok Banner, respectively. In January, it said it would invest an additional CNY3.8 billion to expand capacity at the Huaiyuan plant.

Heterojunction solar cells are batteries with higher output power than traditional photovoltaic cells. They can reduce the cost of PV power generation and are considered one of the future development directions of solar cells.

Editors: Dou Shicong, Futura Costaglione