In its present form the Swiss photovoltaic specialist Meyer Burger is now a memory. In the US, production has been stopped and 280 employees laid off. For the German subsidiaries – with over 600 employees – insolvency proceedings have been filed.
This could bring 70 years of industrial history to an end. Today the once booming share was suspended on the Swiss stock exchange. In 2011 the market value was around CHF2.1 billion ($2.6 billion), lately it was only CHF24 million.
Currently only the Swiss unit in Thun, canton Bern, with 60 employees remains.
Without any more operational activities it is only a question of monetising the assets, i.e. any assets owned by the company, wrote the Zurich Cantonal Bank in an analysis published on Monday. With a net debt of over CHF400 million, creditors are likely to suffer losses and shareholders will be left empty-handed.
The Thun-based company itself announced at the weekend that it would ask for an extension of the deadline to submit financial data for 2024, in light of ongoing discussions on financing the restructuring. The previous deadline expired on Saturday.
Meyer Burger was founded in 1953 and has been active in the solar market for 40 years, a sector made very difficult in Europe due to competition from China.
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