OREANDA-NEWS. December 30, 2011. When the Clark County commissioners were tripping all over themselves to sell 9,000 acres of taxpayer-owned land near Laughlin to the Chinese solar panel maker ENN Mojave Energy, somehow it never came up that Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services had just put the company on “CreditWatch with negative implications” over its attempt, in partnership with another company, to buy a Chinese natural gas company called China Gas Holdings for more than \\$2 billion.

 While ENN was wheeling and dealing with big bucks back home, the rubes on the commission were selling land appraised at between \\$29 million to 38 million for a measly \\$4.5 million to the same company in exchange for a promise to create 500 jobs and a poke of magic beans.

 S&P said of the Chinese company:

 “We believe ENN’s aggressive expansion — such as investments in non-core businesses or overseas markets — or aggressive financial management by using debt to finance any sizable acquisition could undermine its credit profile by significantly increasing business risk or debt burden.

 “We view the target company, China Gas, as having a credit profile that is weaker than ENN’s. Based on publicly available information, we assess China Gas as having lower profitability than ENN’s. China Gas is also more exposed to cash flow volatility due to its liquefied petroleum gas business. We consider China Gas’ capital structure as leveraged with a short dated debt maturity profile.”

 Did the county sell the mineral rights to ENN in case there is gas under those 9,000 acres?

 The Wall Street Journal notes the multi-tiered, multi-national deal may target acquisition of a U.S. shale-gas services company.

 The paper also said China Gas stock has fallen 50 percent in value since the arrest of two senior company officials a year ago on suspicion of embezzlement.