Background
Peng Xiaofeng was born in 1975, China.
小峰 彭
Peng Xiaofeng was born in 1975, China.
After graduating from the Jiangxi Foreign Trade School in 1993 with a diploma in international business, Peng first worked for the Jian Foreign Trade Bureau in Jiangxi Province.
Then in early 1997, with a hard-earned 20 000 yuan in his pocket, he ventured to Shanghai and after some disappointments while searching for work founded his own Suzhou Liuxing foreign trade business. In a few years Peng built his company into a leading Asian manufacturer of personal protective equipment (such as gloves, occupational clothing, labor insurance, and safety shoes), employing 12 000 people. However, recognizing the difficulties and complexities of foreign trade, Peng was not sure whether he should devote all his energy to this sector, and complemented his education with an executive MBA degree from the renowned Guanghua School of Management at Beijing University in 2002. He continued his education by learning to speak fluent Japanese, and when his original business was showing signs of maturity and decline, he traveled to Europe and the United States looking into new opportunities. He remained as CEO of his old company until February 2006 while forming LDK Solar, which was founded in 2005.
Peng has several winning attributes in addition to his intellectual abilities: he is said to be extremely hard working, he is known for his seriousness, but more importantly, he is a master of relationships. Peng founded LDK Solar Hi-Tech Limited in July 2005, putting $30 million of his own money and $80 million of venture financing into building factories in Xinyu. He surrounded himself with a vastly experienced panel of internationally qualified and knowledgeable executives, and rallied behind him 12 000 employees at Suzhou Liuxing while enjoying strong support from the regional governments in China.
Headquartered with manufacturing facilities in the Hi-Tech Industrial Park of Xinyu, Jiangxi Province, LDK sells multi-crystalline wafers globally to manufacturers of photovoltaic products, such as solar cells and modules, and also provides them with wafer processing services. In April 2006 the first commercial shipment of solar wafers was made, and by the end of year capacity had reached 200 megawatts, with sales revenue of RMB950 million. LDK also maintains a US office in Sunnyvale, CA and has been listed on the New York Stock Exchange since 2007 through American Depository Receipts. At the time it was the largest IPO for a Chinese enterprise and the first from Jiangxi Province, and it raised an impressive sum of US$469 million. However the nature of its business as well as its US listing have drawn very prominent analysts to follow the company’s evolution and activities. This turned out to be a mixed blessing and contributed to a turbulent ride. In October 2007, the stock dropped sharply by as much as 50 percent, after an ex-accounting officer publicly alleged that LDK inflated inventory figures of a key raw material, polysilicon. While the company and Peng denied the allegations and the stock subsequently recovered some lost ground, it was still down about 30 percent from its early October 2007 high.
Despite the setback, LDK is still regarded as a leading company with promising technologies in China. With 7000 employees, it is ranked among the top 100 enterprises in Asia by Red Herring, and Peng is determined to develop his new business into a world-class corporation in the fast-growing renewable energy business around the globe.