Meyer Burger loses its biggest customer and risks bankruptcy

On the stock market, its share price, already in free fall for several months, collapsed, losing 61,69% at 14:27 GMT, to 44,9 cents, after the resumption of its trading. Trading in the stock had been suspended during the morning.

As investors were already worried about the group's survival, Meyer Burger announced in a press release that its American client had sent it a letter informing it that it was terminating its main contract with it with immediate effect.

"Meyer Burger is currently analyzing the letter and the situation," it said in the statement. But "whatever the validity of this termination, this is likely to adversely affect restructuring efforts," the Swiss group warned.

These restructuring efforts are at an "advanced" stage, he emphasizes. But "in the event that a financial restructuring fails, the company may no longer be in a position to maintain its activity," it acknowledges.

Faced with tough competition in Europe from Chinese solar panel manufacturers since the American market was closed to them, Meyer Burger had decided to refocus on the American market.

At the end of August, however, it announced that it was abandoning plans to build a new factory in the US state of Colorado, considering it "not financially viable". In September, it launched a restructuring plan that included the elimination of 200 jobs, or 19% of its workforce.

When it published its half-yearly report in early November, it explained that it was in advanced negotiations regarding the restructuring of convertible bonds and said it was banking on the commissioning of a second production line in its other factory in Arizona to revive its growth.

But "Meyer Burger's survival continues to hang by a thread," Bernd Laux, an analyst at the Zurich Cantonal Bank, had already warned in a market commentary the day after the publication of these half-yearly figures.