Solar panel maker Meyer Burger US files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy [Update]

Swiss solar manufacturer Meyer Burger has filed for voluntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy relief in the US after filing for insolvency proceedings earlier this month in Germany.

June 27, 2025: In a court filing on Wednesday, Meyer Burger stated that it was starting the Chapter 11 bankruptcy process in the US. The company estimates its assets between $100 million and $500 million, and its liabilities between $500 million and $1 billion.

Meyer Burger lists its largest creditor with unsecured claims as US Customs and Border Protection, with $5.1 million in unpaid import duties, according to Solar Power World.

As Electrek reported at the end of May, Meyer Burger shut down its Arizona solar factory and terminated all employees, citing a lack of funding.

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June 2, 2025: On Saturday, May 31, Meyer Burger announced that its subsidiaries in Germany have each filed for insolvency proceedings. As we wrote below last week, the employees in Hohenstein-Ernstthal in Saxony and Bitterfeld-Wolfen in Lower Saxony were furloughed last year, but they’ve now been laid off.

Meyer Burger Germany in Hohenstein-Ernstthal employs 289 people in mechanical engineering and technology development. Meyer Burger Industries’ solar cell factory in Bitterfeld-Wolfen employs 331 people.

Subsidiary Meyer Burger (Switzerland) AG, which employs around 60 people in Thun, will remain in operation. Meyer Burger (Americas) Ltd. will also remain a company.

Due to ongoing financing discussions on restructuring, the company has requested an extension of the deadline for presenting its 2024 financial results, which expires today.

May 30, 2025: On May 29, all 282 remaining employees at the Goodyear, Arizona, factory received termination notices, and operations were shut down immediately. The site was still in its ramp-up phase and had a planned annual production capacity of 1.4 gigawatts. Meyer Burger had just started assembling solar cells imported from its factory in Germany.

The company says it’s been forced to shut down the US plant due to a lack of funding. The future of the Goodyear facility is now uncertain.

Meyer Burger is currently in talks with bondholders as it tries to restructure debt tied to two convertible bonds that mature in 2027 and 2029. Those bonds were issued by its subsidiary MBT Systems GmbH and guaranteed by the parent company.

It’s unclear what this means for Meyer Burger’s factories in eastern Germany, a company spokesperson told German press agency dpa. Around 300 employees at each site, in Hohenstein-Ernstthal in Saxony and Bitterfeld-Wolfen in Lower Saxony, were furloughed last year.

Meyer Burger has struggled for a few years, in no small part due to competition from cheaper Chinese solar imports. In 2024, it cut around 20% of its 1,000-person workforce, even as it moved ahead with US expansion plans. In December, the company secured nearly $40 million in bridge financing from creditors to keep things afloat, but that money appears to have run dry.

Meyer Burger says it will share more information as it becomes available.

Read more: Meyer Burger abandons German solar cell factory plans to build a US factory instead

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