ReneSola ADS Rise Slightly in U.S. Debut

The ADS rose 30 cents, or 2.3 percent, to $13.30 in morning trading. The ADS hit a high of $13.73 and a low of $12.75 earlier in the session.

The IPO totaled 10 million ADS, each representing two shares. The company offered 9.2 million ADS, while a group of shareholders including several executive officers sold the remaining 800,000.

ReneSola's shares currently trade on the Alternative Investment Market of the London Stock Exchange under the symbol "SOLA.L." According to Renaissance Capital's IPOHome.com, the IPO price represented a 9.7 percent discount to Monday's closing price of ReneSola's shares on the AIM of the London Stock Exchange.

ReneSola plans to use the roughly $119.6 million in proceeds from its portion of the offering to expand its solar wafer manufacturing plants and to buy more equipment for its wafer capacity expansion plan in 2008. The company also intends to use some proceeds to invest in polysilicon manufacturing production and to pay for raw materials.

ReneSola makes solar wafers, thin sheets of crystalline silicon material primarily used to produce solar cells. The company's customers include JA Solar Co., Motech Industries Inc., Solarfun Power Holding Ltd., Suntech Power Co. Ltd. and Topco Technologies Corp.

Last year marked a banner year for Chinese solar companies, led by solar-cell maker JA Solar Holdings Co., the top-performing company to go public in 2007. JA Solar shares have more than quadrupled since its IPO priced at $15 last February.

But with shares of recently public Chinese companies tending to trade down with the broader market in 2008, analysts expected ReneSola would be forced to go public at a discounted price.

"While i think the company has a really strong growth outlook, the timing might not be the best," said Sam Snyder, an analyst at Renaissance Capital's IPOHome.com.

For the nine months ended Sept. 30, ReneSola's earnings grew to $25.5 million, from roughly $16 million during the prior-year period. At the same time, the company's revenue nearly tripled to $152.9 million, from $52.1 million in the first nine months of 2006.