<p>Solar Power: Look beyond growth; sustainability is the key; Buy STP<br/>The bigger, the better—winners take all<br/>We expect strong global demand to sustain robust top-line growth in the<br/>Chinese solar industry in 2008. However, we note large variations in each<br/>company’s profitability and growth sustainability, mainly due to: 1) mounting<br/>cost pressure fueled by speculative inventory build-up; 2) deterioration of cash<br/>flow, associated with less disciplined investments. These factors will likely take<br/>a heavy toll on the bottom lines of new entrants/smaller players, in our view.<br/>Sales/supply contracts: Quality, not quantity, matters<br/>We believe it is the quality of the committed contracts that counts. While STP<br/>(Buy, Conviction List) and YGE (Neutral) have lower contracted sales than their<br/>peers, we expect minimal order execution risk given their established client<br/>profiles. TSL (Neutral), JASO (Neutral) and SOLF (Neutral) have more exposure<br/>to contracted polysilicon supply, but these contracts come mainly from lesscommitted<br/>domestic suppliers. Thus, we see a high degree of uncertainty in<br/>delivery time and prices for TSL’s, JASO’s and SOLF’s suppliers.<br/>Disciplined investments + quality earnings = financial flexibility<br/>We believe overexpansion to cover the entire value chain would be a potential<br/>major drag on the Chinese solar players (e.g. LDK [Neutral], TSL), given: 1)<br/>incremental funding needs and; 2) potential interruption in existing operations.<br/>In our view, the pursuit of near-term, top-line growth at the expense of<br/>earnings quality and profitability could jeopardize a company’s long-term<br/>fundamentals. We see STP and YGE in a position to capitalize on the booming<br/>demand for solar products over the long term with their focused business<br/>strategies and well-managed expansion plans.<br/>Pair trade idea: long STP, short TSL<br/>STP is our top pick in the sector given its enhanced scale, solid order pipeline,<br/>and strong financial position. Among our Neutral-rated stocks, we are most<br/>cautious on TSL due to concerns on overexpansion, downside risk to margins<br/>and potential disappointment in 2H08 earnings.<br/>Revising TPs and estimates for changes in assumptions<br/>We revise our 12-m DCF based TPs by -12% to 38% and 08E/09E estimates by -<br/>25% to 56%/ -21% to 53%, due to changes in our assumptions on account of<br/>increasing 1H08 margin pressure and financial costs, and changes in volume<br/>growth assumptions. Risks: volume shortfall and margin pressure.</p><p>Table of contents<br/>Changes to target prices and earnings forecasts 2<br/>Pair trading opportunity: Long STP, Short TSL 6<br/>Valuation: STP’s strengthening fundamentals driving re-rating 7<br/>Sales/supply contracts security: quality, not quantity, matters 8<br/>Earnings growth: margin retention counts more than top line growth 11<br/>Cash flow: Disciplined investments = better financial flexibility 12<br/>Company long-term success potential analysis 13<br/>Company DCF analysis 16<br/>Company quarterly profit models 26<br/>Disclosures 32<br/>The prices in the body of this report are based on the market close of April 15, 2008.</p><p></p><p>
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