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Biggest Solar Collapse in China Imperils $1.28 Billion

Investors stand to lose most of the $1.28 billion they put into Suntech Power Holdings Co. (STP) after the solar manufacturer said it wouldn’t resist a bankruptcy petition filed in China.

The company, based in Wuxi, outside Shanghai, had more than $2 billion in debt and defaulted on $541 million in bonds due on March 15, prompting eight Chinese banks to ask a local court to push Suntech’s main unit into insolvency.

“There’s a host of companies that have gone to Wall Street investors and gotten billions of dollars, and these investors are ultimately going to be on the hook and get nothing out of it,” Angelo Zino, an analyst at Standard & Poor’s Financial Services LLC in New York, said in an interview yesterday.

Mount Kellett Capital Management LP, Driehaus Capital Management LLC and Pioneer Investment Management Inc. were the largest bondholders, with about 23 percent of the debt, according to December public filings compiled by Bloomberg.

The largest outside owners of Suntech’s American depositary receipts are Renaissance Technologies Corp., Invesco Ltd. and Shah Capital Management. None of the bondholders or shareholders were available for comment.

Suntech’s collapse follows bankruptcies in Germany of manufacturers including Q-Cells SE, previously the biggest solar manufacturer. Sharp Corp. of Japan, which led solar cell-making until 2006, has been scaling back operations overseas. In 2011, Solyndra LLC collapsed despite $535 million of support from the U.S. Energy Department.