The U.S. project is expected to start production in the second half of 2024.

Author Meng xing

On October 8, Trine Solar Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Trine Solar", 688599.SH) released its third-quarter performance forecast. It is expected that the net profit attributable to the parent in the first three quarters of this year will be 4.563 billion to 5.577 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase. 89.94% to 132.15%.

Regarding the reasons for the performance growth, Trine Solar said that the company's photovoltaic product business has developed rapidly, and the shipments of photovoltaic modules, brackets and distributed systems have achieved significant growth compared with the same period last year. During the reporting period, the Company benefited from a significant increase in N-type advanced production capacity, and the proportion of sales of the Company's TOPCon component products increased significantly; benefiting from the gradual release of self-produced N-type silicon wafer production capacity, the comprehensive cost of the Company's component products further decreased. At the same time, the company continues to carry out technology research and development and process improvement, so that the company's i-TOPCon battery mass production efficiency and component mass production power have reached the industry-leading level, product competitiveness is further enhanced.

In addition, the Company further enriched its energy storage product line and continued to expand its domestic and overseas markets, with significant growth in shipments of energy storage products compared with the same period last year; the overall cost of the Company's energy storage products continued to decline, benefiting from the offline of its own batteries and the increase in yield.

at the performance presentation meeting held on October 10, the company revealed that it has built a total of 6.5GW integrated production capacity in Vietnam and Thailand. The U.S. project is currently progressing in an orderly manner and is expected to start production in the second half of 2024.

Performance and Stock Price Performance Contrary

According to data, Trinity was founded in 1997 and was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2006. In March 2017, the company announced its formal privatization, delisting from U.S. stocks, and in June 2020. Listed on the board.

Trinity's main business includes photovoltaic products, photovoltaic systems, smart energy three major sectors. Photovoltaic products include the research and development, production and sales of photovoltaic modules, photovoltaic systems include system products business and power plant business, and smart energy is mainly composed of energy storage solutions, photovoltaic power generation and operation and maintenance, intelligent microgrid and multi-energy systems. Among them, PV module shipments have achieved the world's first.

Trinity Solar's semi-annual report shows that the company achieved operating income of 49.384 billion yuan in the first half of the year, an increase of 38.21 percent over the same period last year, and achieved a net profit of 3.54 billion yuan, an increase of 178.88 percent over the same period last year. In the first half of the year, the company invested 2.678 billion yuan in research and development, up 24.44 year on year.

Despite Trine Solar's excellent performance, the company's share price has continued to decline this year, falling from a minimum of 70 yuan at the beginning of the year to 29 yuan. As of October 10, the stock closed at 29.78 yuan, down 52.77 percent during the year, which also attracted investors' attention.

At the recent performance presentation meeting held by Trine Solar, some investors asked, "What does the company think about the current stock price? What do you think about the performance not being recognized by the capital market? Does the current stock price indicate that the company's 2024 performance is no longer likely to continue this year's performance, or that it will perform poorly?"

In response, the company responded that the stock price trend in the secondary market is affected by various factors such as macroeconomics, emotional preferences, and market environment, and has greater uncertainty. Investors are advised to pay attention to investment risks. The company will continue to do a good job in operation and management, actively improve new high-efficiency battery technology and vertically integrated global production capacity layout, continue to give full play to its advantages in brand, channel, globalization and other aspects, consolidate and enhance its market leading position, ensure the realization of future production and operation objectives, and give back to the majority of investors with better performance.

Multiple fundraising to expand production during the year

Behind Trine Solar's brilliant performance, the company is actually constantly raising funds to expand production. Since the beginning of this year, Trine Solar has raised many large funds.

In February, Trinity Solar announced that the company intends to issue convertible corporate bonds to unspecified objects, and the total amount of funds raised will not exceed 8.865 billion yuan. The company said that the convertible bond fundraising, net of issuance costs, will be used to invest in an annual output of 35GW of direct pull single crystal project, as well as to replenish liquidity and repay bank loans.

in June, Trine Solar announced that it plans to raise no more than 10.9 billion yuan for Huai 'an annual 10GW high-efficiency solar cell project, Trine Solar (Dongtai) annual 10GW high-efficiency solar cell project, Trine Solar (Dongtai) annual 10GW photovoltaic module project, as well as to supplement working capital and repay bank loans.

Not only that, Trinity also raised funds through external borrowing. The announcement shows that from January to September 2023, the company and its subsidiaries within the scope of the consolidated statement accumulated new loans of 8.426 billion yuan, accounting for 31.99 of the net assets attributable to shareholders of listed companies at the end of 2022.

Zhongdeng Network shows that Trine Solar has multiple mortgage registration information. One of the registration information is that on July 31, Trine Solar mortgaged 2088 sets of machinery and equipment to the Agricultural Bank of China, with a total value of about 0.81 billion. The debt performance period is from July 31 to December 31, 2023.

Trinity also invests in projects while raising capital. Since the beginning of this year, in addition to investing in the above-mentioned projects, in May this year, Trine Solar announced that it plans to invest in the construction of 25 GW single crystal pull rods and supporting projects in Sichuan Shifang Economic Development Zone. The total investment of the project is about 10.7 billion yuan, of which Trinity Solar contributes about 8.7 billion yuan and Shifang State-owned Company contributes about 2 billion yuan. In July, the company signed a project investment agreement with the Shifang Municipal Government, and planned to build a production base with an annual output of 13GW single crystal rods and supporting projects in the local area. The total investment of the project is about 5.3 billion yuan, of which Trine Solar contributes about 4.3 billion yuan.

From the overall situation of the domestic photovoltaic industry, it is not only Trinity that continues to raise funds to expand production. Many industry insiders have pointed out the problem of overcapacity in the industry.

Gao Jifan, chairman of Trinity Solar, said at SNEC's 16th (2023) International Solar Photovoltaic and Smart Energy (Shanghai) Conference that China's photovoltaic industry has entered a trillion-dollar track, with the total output value of the main photovoltaic industry exceeding 1.4 trillion yuan in 2022. If auxiliary materials and equipment are added, the total output value will exceed 2.2 trillion yuan. By the end of 2022, the total market value of 138 listed photovoltaic companies will reach 3.8 trillion yuan. At the same time, it should also be noted that China's photovoltaic industry is facing three major challenges: overcapacity, technology iteration and the international environment.

At Trine Solar's semi-annual performance presentation meeting, some investors said that the market generally believes that the industry has overcapacity and wants to understand the company's capacity utilization.

In response, the company said that it expects the company's silicon wafer capacity to reach 50GW by the end of 2023; battery capacity to reach 75GW, of which N-type TOPCon battery capacity to reach 40GW; component capacity to reach 95GW, capacity utilization at a high level. The company firmly believes that the new production capacity in the industry is structured high-quality production capacity, by deepening the layout of the N-type industrial chain advanced high-quality production capacity, can further consolidate and enhance the company's industry leading position.

Core Technical Staff Leaving

With the continuous expansion of the photovoltaic industry and the intensification of industry competition, Trine Solar will inevitably encounter the problem of brain drain.

In February this year, Trine Solar announced that Fang Bin, the company's core technical staff, had recently applied to resign from relevant positions for personal reasons and completed the resignation procedures. Fang Bin will no longer hold any position in the company after leaving office. The company and Fang Bin signed a confidentiality clause and a non-competition clause, Fang Bin has the obligation to keep confidential the company's technical secrets and other trade secrets that he knows, and Mr. Fang Bin's departure does not affect the integrity of the company's patents and other intellectual property rights.

According to the announcement, Fang Bin joined the company in November 2017 as the general manager of Tianhe Cloud Energy Internet Technology (Hangzhou) Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of the company. He has profound theoretical accumulation and practical experience in the field of energy management system and energy cloud platform. During his tenure, he was mainly responsible for participating in the technical research and development of the company's comprehensive energy efficiency management platform (industry and commerce) and other projects.

As of the disclosure date of the announcement, Fang Bin holds 10418 Class II restricted shares, and 24240 Class II restricted shares that Fang Bin has been granted but not yet vested will be invalidated. According to the company's 2021 annual report, Fang Bin received a total pre-tax compensation of 1.4111 million yuan from the company that year.

In July, Trine Solar issued another announcement stating that the company's board of directors recently received a written resignation report from the company's director and deputy general manager Cao Bo. Due to personal reasons, Mr. Cao Bo applied to resign as director and deputy general manager of the company, and no longer served as a member of the nomination committee of the board of directors.

As of the announcement date, Cao Bo directly holds 260586 shares of the company. At the same time, Mr. Cao Bo indirectly holds 0.052 of the Company's shares through Shiyan Xiesheng Enterprise Management Partnership (Limited Partnership).

Some people in the industry said that these veterans who are leaders in the industry and have rich successful experience in photovoltaic project operations have become the targets of competition by all parties. High salary, equity, higher position and greater decision-making power all give these photovoltaic executives great temptation.

Wang Bohua, honorary chairman of the Photovoltaic Industry Association, once disclosed that from the beginning of 2022 to the end of April 2023, China's photovoltaic industry chain plans to expand more than 460 production projects. Although there is uncertainty in the actual landing situation, it is natural that there is a strong demand for talents on such a large base of production expansion planning. (Thinking Finance and Economics) ■