A startup company founded by LDK Solar’s CEO Xiaofeng Peng is responsible for a $1.9 billion sales order reported by Applied Materials (Nasdaq: AMAT) to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in March, according to reports.
Applied Materials still has not confirmed who the mystery customer is. However, Hakan Telenius, organizer of the LDK Investor Group, said he was sure that Best Solar, which is unrelated to LDK, placed the order. He did not disclose his source, but said it was a direct source confirmed by others.
SustainableBusiness.com reported that Moser Baer might have been the company that placed the order, based on their recently announced commitment to spend $1.5 billion on thin-film solar.
The emergence of Peng’s Best Solar apparently is creating waves around LDK. Reportedly, Best Solar aims to be the world’s largest supplier of thin-film solar panels, making it a competitor to LDK’s crystalline solar technology.
Telenius said he hopes Peng is considering merging LDK and Best Solar, but LDK may have agreements with customers that do not allow the company to sell solar-panels.
Piper Jaffray analyst Jesse Pichel told Greentech he believes the report is correct, based on his own sources.
"If true, it means the CEO’s personal business is directly competing with LDK shareholders," Pichel said. "It’s a competing technology – one’s thin-film and one’s polycrystalline. And given that Peng’s the driver of the company, his attention may be diluted now that he’s having to run a big private company. He’s ramping a 1.5-gigawatt poly plant, a 1.5-gigawatt wafer plant and a gigawatt of thin film all at the same time."
LDK’s annual report also states that Peng and his family members "are considering and may invest or otherwise participate in his personal capacity in several alternative-energy projects, including projects involving thin-film solar technology, solar-thermal, wind energy and biofuels."
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