SolarWorld AG SolarWorld AG is Planning Takeover Offer for German Opel Sites

SolarWorld AG / Miscellaneous

Release of a Corporate News, transmitted by DGAP - a company of EquityStory
AG.
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announcement.
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Reconstruction to Green Automotive Group

SolarWorld AG is planning to submit an offer to the US car maker General
Motors (GM) to take over the four German factories and the Rüsselsheim
development center of Adam Opel GmbH. To this end SolarWorld AG can make
available cash funds amounting to 250 million EUR and bank credit lines
worth 750 million EUR under the proviso that the federal government
provides a guarantee. The SolarWorld Group which has so far been
exclusively involved in solar power technology would subsequently develop
Opel into the first 'green' European automotive group. A core prerequisite
for the submission of the offer is the complete separation of Opel from the
GM Group and a compensation payment of 40,000 EUR per German job (totaling
1 billion EUR).
At the four German Opel locations it is the idea of SolarWorld AG to
continue the sustainable further development of the current successful
model ranges and, additionally, to produce a new generation of vehicles
with energy-efficient, low-emission drives in the future. The European
development center in Rüsselsheim is already working on solutions for
future-oriented electric drive vehicles like the 'Volt'. After the
restructuring of the product range the tradition-fraught German car maker
would especially offer electric drive and hybrid drive vehicles in the
future as well as models equipped with the latest technology like
extended-range electric drive vehicles that combine electric motors and
combustion engines in a highly efficient manner.
Two years ago SolarWorld AG had in a similar case taken over the solar
division of the Shell Group with a compensation payment of 100 million EUR,
consistently modernized it at various sites in the USA and taken it into
black figures in the course of this year.
'Sustainability is a comprehensive concept. The challenges of climate
protection and of the market can only be met if we move on from automotive
to solar-motive concepts', says SolarWorld Chairman and CEO Frank H.
Asbeck. The group has already been working for some years on the
development and testing of electric drive vehicles that are propelled by
solar energy and that even participate successfully in motor racing.
For picture material please go to our homepage under
http://www.solarworld.de/Corporate-News.72.0.html.

About SolarWorld AG: The SolarWorld AG group of companies (ISIN:
DE0005108401) is a world leader in high quality solar power technology. The
company is involved at all levels of the solar value chain and combines all
activities of the industry from silicon as the raw material to turn-key
solar power system. SolarWorld AG is represented in all international solar
growth markets. The group is exclusively dedicated to its core business of
photovoltaic power generation, operating production facilities in Germany
and the USA. They in turn supply the SolarWorld AG sales offices in
Germany, Spain, USA, South Africa and Singapore. In South Korea SolarWorld
AG is currently building up a solar module production facility in order to
be able to serve the growing demand in Asia on the spot in the future. A
central element of the business in addition to the sale of turn-key solar
systems and solar modules to retailers is the distribution of solar silicon
wafers to the international solar cell industry. Apart from grid-coupled
(on-grid) products the SolarWorld Group also sells off-grid solar power
solutions that make an important contribution to the sustainable economic
development of threshold and developing countries. Under the roof
Solar2World the group has pooled its ethical commitment to solar power
especially in developing countries.
SolarWorld AG employs 2,254 people worldwide. At the stock market the
company is listed among others in the technology index TecDAX, in the
ÖkoDAX, in the Dow Jones STOXX 600, in the international MSCI index as well
as in the sustainability indices DAXglobal Alternative Energy and NAI.


Contact:
SolarWorld AG Investor Relations / Marketing Communications,
Tel.-No.: +49 228 55920 -470; Fax-No.: +49 228 55920-9470,
E-mail: placement@solarworld.de   
Internet: www.solarworld.de


19.11.2008  Financial News transmitted by DGAP
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Language:     English
Issuer:       SolarWorld AG
              Kurt-Schumacher-Straße 12-14
              53113 Bonn
              Deutschland
Phone:        +49 (0)228 - 559 20 470
Fax:          +49 (0)228 - 559 20 99
E-mail:       placement@solarworld.de
Internet:     www.solarworld.de
ISIN:         DE0005108401
WKN:          510840
Indices:      TecDAX
Listed:       Regulierter Markt in Frankfurt (Prime Standard), Düsseldorf;
              Freiverkehr in Berlin, München, Hamburg, Stuttgart;
              Terminbörse EUREX
 
End of News                                     DGAP News-Service
 
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