UPDATE 2-Conergy staff under investigation-prosecutors
* Investigation over suspected insider trading
* Spokeswoman confirms company had been searched
* Conergy stock closes down 7.4 percent (Adds details, background, shares)
FRANKFURT/HAMBURG, June 17 (Reuters) - German prosecutors have opened an investigation into 11 suspects at German solar company Conergy (CGYG.DE) over possible insider trading, share price manipulation and falsification of balance sheet data.
Wilhelm Moellers, a spokesman for the Hamburg public prosecutor's office, confirmed a report to this effect by German public broadcaster NDR.
A Conergy spokeswoman said the company's headquarters in Hamburg had been searched on Tuesday, adding that the investigation covered events from 2006 to April 2007.
The spokeswoman also said that the 11 suspects -- whom she did not identify -- had been employed at Conergy during that period, but declined to comment on whether all or some were still with the company.
Shares in the company closed down 7.4 percent, underperforming the FSTE clean tech index .FTET50, which stood 1.9 percent lower at 1603 GMT.
Conergy -- which had a 307 million euro ($425.5 million) net loss in 2008 -- is undergoing a major overhaul by streamlining its business and focusing on fewer business segments.
Conergy in April said it would "lodge claims for damages against the company's former management board members" after having "ascertained various breaches of duty".
German financial watchdog BaFin this year dropped an investigation over whether the company had released in a timely fashion information in an adhoc statement in October 2007. (Reporting by Christoph Steitz in Frankfurt and Jan Schwartz in Hamburg; Editing by Rupert Winchester)
