Nomura Invests in Indian Solar Company
Hong Kong, September 4, 2008 – Nomura, the leading Asia-based investment bank, today announced that its Asia Merchant Banking team has reached an agreement with Moser Baer, a global technology company based in India, on an investment in its wholly owned photovoltaic (PV) subsidiary, Moser Baer Solar Plc ("MB Solar"). Together with investments from Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, CDC Group, IDFC PE and IDFC, the transaction will provide MB Solar with funding of Rs. 411 crore (US$93.5 million) to support the growth of its PV business.
Launched in 2005, MB Solar's primary objective is to enable solar power as a competitive source of energy to meet the world's future energy needs. The company manufactures photovoltaic cells and modules by straddling multiple technologies including crystalline silicon, thin films, and concentrators. The capital injection will be used mainly to fund the capacity expansion in high efficiency crystalline silicon and thin film solar verticals.
As the need for solar energy grows, the solar PV market has expanded dramatically in recent years. Backed by Moser Baer's technological excellence and manufacturing experience, MB Solar expects to increasingly become a leading force in the global solar PV market.
Yoshiki Hashimoto, Head of Asia Merchant Banking at Nomura, said: "With an outstanding management team and over a decade of technology manufacturing experience, Moser Baer has significant potential to become a global leader in the solar PV space. Our investment will help Moser Baer rapidly scale up and reach grid parity in the near future."
The transaction marks the Nomura Asia Merchant Banking team's second investment into an Indian company and its first into the cleantech space, further demonstrating Nomura's commitment to supporting promising Asian companies and seeking attractive investment opportunities in environment-related firms.
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Nomura
Nomura is a leading financial services group and the preeminent Asian-based investment bank with worldwide reach. Nomura provides a broad range of innovative solutions tailored to the specific requirements of individual, institutional, corporate and government clients through an international network in 30 countries. Based in Tokyo and with regional headquarters in Hong Kong, London, and New York, Nomura employs about 18,000 staff worldwide. Nomura's unique understanding of Asia enables the company to make a difference for clients through five business divisions: domestic retail, global markets, global investment banking, global merchant banking, and asset management. For further information about Nomura, please visit www.nomura.com.
Moser Baer
Moser Baer, headquartered in New Delhi, is a leading global technology company. Established in 1983, the company successfully developed cutting edge technologies to become the world's second largest manufacturer of Optical Storage media like CDs and DVDs. The company also emerged as a leading edge player in next-generation of storage formats, especially Blu-ray discs. Recently, the company has also transformed itself from a single business into a multi-technology organisation, diversifying into exciting areas of Solar Energy, Home Entertainment and IT Peripherals and Consumer Electronics.
Through its wholly owned subsidiaries, the company manufactures photovoltaic cells and modules by straddling multiple technologies including crystalline silicon, concentrator, nano technologies and thin films. Moser Baer Entertainment offers home video titles in various Indian languages at unmatched prices and is also engaged in film production and theatrical distribution. The company has also initiated marketing of a series of IT Peripherals and Consumer Electronics gadgets.
Moser Baer employs over 7,500 full-time employees and multiple manufacturing facilities in the suburbs of New Delhi.
Website: www.moserbaer.in
