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Well we will find out very soon what their plans are the dividend/ buy back as they will tell us in the 1st quarter & we will have a choice to make in the 2nd quarter. 21st seems like a good time to tell all. My feeling here are their could be a special dividend spilt over the next two years. They did say they wanted to keep enough cash to keep the business going, but do have tens of millions to please the shareholders if they wish. I bought a lot in the 40's & 50's, but also 25p and 3p so my average is just a couple of pence away & here hoping for a exciting ride up over the next few months. IMOH and good luck everyone.

Where that that rise come from... Interesting

Wonder how high this will go to before the news comes out. Not high volume, but moving quickly up! Will be interesting if Friday gains are held on opening on Monday. Don't see us knowing much till the third week in January at the earliest so any guesses where this rise will stop. IMHO and happy new year all.

There must be more news out there, but we are just not hearing about it yet. Keep rising & nearly break even!! Buy now 10.5.

I wonder how high this will go until the 'dividend' news is released? Anyone got any views? IMHO.

Barclays sharecast PV Crystalox Solar to return cash to shareholders PV Crystalox Solar saw shares rise strongly on Monday morning following news that is to return some of its cash pile to shareholders. In an interim management statement, the manufacturer of components for solar power cells, announced: "The group has a strong net cash balance and the board is continuing to reorganise the group, to enable the return of cash to shareholders. The board expects to make a further announcement before the year end." At the end of June, the company, which manufactures components for solar power cells, had €122.4m of cash. Sandeep Deshpande, analyst at house broker JP Morgan, estimates that it will have net cash of €87.6m or 17p a share at the end of 2012. There are hopes that the company will return most or all of this cash to shareholders, possibly as part of a long-term plan to wind down the company, which is bleeding money in an exceedingly tough market for its products. While the amount to be returned is uncertain, what is clear is that its trading position continues to deteriorate owing to vast overcapacity in the photo voltaic market. Spot wafer prices have continued to fall and are now 76% below the level of April 2011 and remain significantly below industry production costs. About this the company commented: "In response to such market conditions, the group adopted a cash conservation strategy 12 months ago and reduced production volumes. Shipment volumes for the full year are now expected to be in the range of 100-105MW which is at the lower end of the 100-120MW range indicated at the time of our interim results on 16 August 2012. "While the group has maintained its average selling prices significantly above spot levels, the board continues to expect that the group will incur an operating loss in the second half of this year."

Very interesting indeed what could happen in the next 4 weeks. PVCS has so much cash & giving some back to the shareholders is great, but how much is the question we all want to know. So we will know before Christmas & if it 8p or 12p or whatever it will still give PVCS 50% (12p special dividend) of their cash left for the future. Still not sure what the company plans are, but the market seem to like this today & there could be light at the end of all this. Tough few years for us but a wee Christmas gift would go down well for all of us shareholders. All in my opinion. GLA

Interesting RNS & share price rising over 15%. Special dividend looks on the cards. GLA

Brad Jester, director of projects and business development at Clean Energy Associates, a renewable energy consultancy in Shanghai, said: “There is far too much manufacturing capacity and world demand has started to collapse. The EU launched these anti-dumping subsidies against China and the US is doing the same thing. China has hit back, but it is tit for tat, it’s dirty play.” Paradoxically, China may also represent a saviour for foreign solar companies as Beijing focuses on boosting domestic demand for solar panels to mop up excess capacity and meet its mammoth energy needs. George Osborne caused controversy in July with a leaked letter to Ed Davey, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, suggesting that attempting to meet renewable energy targets was too expensive and that the UK should focus on gas generation instead. END

Solar industry ‘at risk from trade war’ The tit-for-tat action is causing pain for solar panel manufacturers worldwide Ben Birchall/PA Emily Ford Shanghai Published at 12:01AM, November 2 2012 The Times China has fired the latest salvo in what experts are describing as an escalating global trade war in the solar industry, with an attack on the European Union over alleged unfair pricing and subsidies for solar panels. After the EU said in September that it would act on manufacturers’ complaints and investigate China for “dumping” solar panels – selling them overseas at a loss – Beijing yesterday retaliated by accusing the EU of the same offence, saying that it would also launch an investigation. With its domestic solar industry in the throes of crisis, an aggrieved China in July declared that it would open anti-dumping investigations against South Korea and America, which in turn moved to impose steep taxes on Chinese solar panels over alleged unfair pricing. These tit-for-tat incidents are the cause of widespread pain for the global solar industry, with solar panel-makers worldwide battered into consolidation and bankruptcy as the global slowdown leads countries to turn to cheaper sources of fuel, such as natural gas. Jeremy Leggett, chairman of the UK Taskforce on Peak Oil and Energy Security, and chairman of SolarCentury and SolarAid, said that the dispute had become a “global trade war”. “There are understandable concerns on both sides – the European companies are worried that domestic industries are being destroyed by low Chinese pricing. It is looking increasingly serious. People have got to sit down and talk about it rather than dealing with it through lawyers,” Mr Leggett said. “I am very concerned about a global trade war placing at risk an industry that is vital for the future of the world economy.” A vast tide of billions of dollars of government-backed and private investment led the number of Chinese solar equipment manufacturers to balloon from the mid-2000s onwards. Yet the industry now finds itself in a state of collapse, owing to massive overcapacity and shrinking demand from its biggest customer, Europe, which accounted for €21 billion (£16.8 billion) of sales last year, or 60 per cent of its output. Two of the biggest companies, LDK Solar and Suntech, have been forced to accept government bailouts and experts expect manufacturing output to halve in size in the next two years. Li Junfeng, a leading energy policymaker, last month described the once-booming sector as “a patient on life support”. Chinese solar companies, which were already thought by many to be receiving unfair levels of support from Beijing, have responded to falling demand by slashing prices. Brad Jester, director of projects and business development at Clean Energy Associates, a renewable energy consultancy in Shanghai, said:

Very health cash balance sheet, but will be a bit less now. I would say PVCS is battling down all the hatches until the doom & gloom of the economy is over and the price rises again for their products. They still have a couple of large contracts that when cancelled we will receive more cash. But an important aspect is to keep an eye on China to see if imports to Europe for silicone is stop due to low price & unfair trading. Complicated to say the least. If this happens PVCS could do well again as prices would rise. I think their cash positions is about 15p a share & long term (2-3 years) PVCS could be a real winner. IMHO. I just wish they would tell us shareholders more about what is going on. It would not surprise me if they do come out with a one off dividend payment soon, but only time will tell.

Three trades today & two of the 22 & 23p. MM games maybe. Very strange & it went up 5%. Is some news coming out Monday morning? Time will tell! We have had no news from PVCS which feels like months now. Wondering if they are planning their own futures? Bought most of my shares in PVCS in the 40's, but now got an average of around 13p off memory. GLA

Today's Investors Chronicle has a piece on PVCS in its Company Results section, entitled "Restructuring to boost PV" in which it rates PVCS a "Speculative buy". From IC's conclusion - "Following a €90m contract settlement with one of its customers, PV Crystalox is now sitting on €122m in cash - three times its market value - and a formal restructuring is likely to provide a boost to its share price." This follows on from the "oversold" write up on PVCS in the Financial Times a week ago. And so means that the 'big two' - i.e. FT and IC - are both taking a bullish stance on the company in the wake of its interim results last week.

Wonder what we will get at 7am. Hopefully a good outcome for us shareholder.

Sooner or later, though, he will have to decide whether PV Crystalox has any future at all. In a recent note, Peel Hunt said: “Investors are soon going to need to choose whether to push for maximising short-term cash returns (dividends, buybacks) or maintaining an industrial base in case of a solar market recovery.” Belief in the latter is not unrealistic: Bloomberg New Energy Finance said prices are “below manufacturing cost, and consequently unsustainable”. But even if prices do stage a comeback, PV Crystalox’s glory days are surely behind it.

Inside the City: Solar giant has lost its shine Danny Fortson Published: 12 August 2012 Sunday Times ONCE upon a time PV Crystalox Solar was a big company. At its height in 2008 the maker of components for solar panels was tickling the £1 billion mark. As of Friday, it was worth just £33m. Its main plant in Germany sits idle as management wait, quite possibly in vain, for panel prices to recover. Some say it should just wind itself up and return cash to shareholders. The company is a cautionary tale of what happens when European manufacturers go head to head with the Chinese juggernaut. A couple of figures tell the story. One is 75% — the drop in solar panel prices over the past three years thanks to a flood of cheap Chinese products. The second is 50 gigawatts — the global production capacity for a market that, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, is not likely to need more than 30GW this year. Again, most of this production is in China. The fallout has been horrendous. A pair of German panel makers — Q.Cells and Solon — have gone bankrupt. America’s First Solar shut its European arm in April. These are the prospects PV Crystalox faces. Its German factory, located in the appropriately named town of Bitterfeld, makes wafers that go into photovoltaic panels. It has been shut down for nearly a year because its only other option is to sell its wares at a loss. The other plant at Abingdon, Oxfordshire, which churns out solar ingots, is still operating to comply with long-term contracts. Investors are less concerned with its core business, however. So dramatic has been the shift in the industry that PV Crystalox’s fortunes now depend more on courtroom battles than its manufacturing prowess. The company announced in May it had reached a €90m settlement with a customer that had pulled out of a contract. The payout was equal to four times its market value at the time. It is in arbitration with at least one other customer that no longer wants what PV Crystalox is selling. Analysts have pencilled in a big loss for the first half of the year. After that deficit is taken into account, plus tax on the settlement, the company should still be left with a cash pile of at least €50m. That would be equivalent to about 10p a share, more than the 8p at which the stock closed on Friday. Investors want some of that cash. They forced the resignation of Maarten Henderson, the chairman, in May. Iain Dorrity, the chief executive, has intimated that he could buy back shares or distribute some of the settlement money through a dividend. He will end the suspense on Thursday with the company’s first-half results. Sooner or later, though, he will have to decide whether PV Crystalox has any future at all. In a recent note, Peel Hunt said: “Investors are soon going to need to choose whether to push for maximising short-term cash returns (dividends, buybacks) or maint

So Thursday is going to be a massive day for us. Think we might see a 3 or 4p special dividend, but that just my feeling in the matter. In the paper article they say PVCS has a cash pile amount to 10p a share. So defo going to be interested what they tell us on Thursday, but not sure what the future holds. GLA

Would really like to know what's going on behinds PVCS's doors. Very quiet, but share price ticking up slowely. Anybody know? ATB

Thanks for your comments! Don't think they will go bust, but they have to tell us more about there plans for future development.

Today was a good test & held up very well with nearly 4% increase. Looking forward to the next few weeks with this share. Going to be interesting & i think there could be a couple of nice surprises on the way imo. Welcome aboard Losoea & good luck with your investment.