Shares in India’s biggest wind energy firm Suzlon plunged on Thursday as much as 44 percent — hitting a new one-year low — after the debt-laden firm’s promoters sold a small stake to raise funds.
Suzlon, once a star of India’s green technology, finally closed down 33.81 percent at 16.05 rupees as investors turned jittery on the news.
The promoters of the firm sold 10.99 million shares — a 6.19 percent stake — worth 2.4 billion rupees ($44 million), to comply with a corporate debt restructuring process, a Suzlon statement said.
The promoters’ holding in Suzlon fell to 44.46 percent after the sale, the company said.
Earlier this month Suzlon posted its biggest-ever quarterly loss, which quadrupled to $211 million in the three months to December due to a combination of hefty debt and declining global demand for turbines.
Chairman Tulsi Tanti said then that “near-term challenges” for the wind energy sector would continue because macro-economic conditions and policy challenges affected markets worldwide.
Suzlon last October made the biggest-ever default on repayments by an Indian firm when bondholders rejected its bid for a four-month extension to more than $200 million of debt.
But this year it announced the formal approval of its proposal to restructure its domestic debt of nearly $2 billion.
India's wind giant Suzlon tanks as promoters sell stake
