Solar Cell Mania Reaches Its Limits On Wall Street
from the the-sun-god dept
Despite the market's convulsions, the VMWare IPO went off without a hitch, suggesting that investors aren't yet throwing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater. They may be in a state of panic over credit markets, but they won't let a quality company be ignored. However, they may be pulling back from certain riskier ventures. Canadian solar cell maker Photowatt has announced that it will suspend its IPO plans, citing unfavorable market conditions. This is a pretty common excuse for companies, particularly at times like these when the market does look inhospitable. What seems most likely is that investors simply have their fill of solar power, as there's been a rush of IPOs in the space this year. With every one that comes out of the gate, it gets that much harder for the next company to go public, particularly if it's not on solid financial ground.![Hide This Hide this](https://ii.techdirt.com/s/t/i/topclose.png)
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More private equity?
I suspect that it is not so much that the bloom is off the rose, but rather that the rose is being moved to a private garden. I would guess that the growth is solar will be accelerating and raising capital will not be a big problem largely because solar is now competitive with delivered electricity and its regulatory environment is becoming more and more even with central generation methods. The big challage will be to find ways to maintain or enhance market share in a period of exponential growth. Large manufacturers today will be bit players tomorrow if they can't both increase output and reduce costs. Fortunately, economies-of-scale savings have yet to be fully realized so that investing in agressive publicly traded companies could yield benefits.
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