LDK Solar Co. (LDK), a Chinese solar manufacturer that’s declined 75 percent in the past year, sold additional shares to Fulai Investments Ltd. for about 30 percent less than it paid a month ago.
Fulai bought 12 million shares for $1.28 each, Xinyu, China-based LDK said today in a statement. Fulai bought 5 million shares Feb. 28 for $1.83 apiece, the first part of a 17 million-share purchase agreement announced in January.
Fulai, which is owned by Hong Kong businessman Cheng Kin Ming, may designate two directors to LDK’s 10-member board. The share purchase would make Fulai LDK’s largest shareholder after its founder and Chairman Peng Xiaofeng, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The price Fulai paid for the 12 million shares is 13 percent more than LDK is trading for. LDK’s American depositary receipts, each worth one ordinary share, fell 3.5 percent to $1.13 at the close in New York. Fulai initially agreed to pay $1.83 a share for the 17 million shares.
LDK, the biggest maker of wafers for solar cells after GCL- Poly Energy Holdings Ltd., had $3.1 billion in debt at the end of the third quarter, and hired Citigroup Inc. in December to help renegotiate its liabilities. The company hasn’t said when it will release it fourth-quarter results.