Corre Energy, the Dublin-listed renewable energy storage developer, raised €2.12 million on Thursday from a share sale to its founding shareholders and another long-term investor to tide it over as it continues talks with parties interested in making a “strategic investment” in the company.
The company’s founding shareholders include former director Darren Patrick Green, who stepped down in February, chief executive Keith McGrane and businessman Brendan Boyd.
“This investment would support the working capital of the company as it moves through the next stage in its strategic investment process being managed by Rothschild & Co,” Corre said.
Corre also intends to carry out an additional share sale in the coming days to other eligible shareholders in the company to give them the chance to avoid having their stakes watered down by the placing with the group of larger investors.
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Davy analyst Michael Mitchell said the €2.12 million proceeds is likely to “add approximately three months to its working capital runway, assuming a current monthly cash burn rate of circa €700,000-€800,000″. Shares in the company rose 3 per cent to 47.4 cents in Dublin.
“It provides an important financial backstop for the business through the completion of its ongoing strategic investment process, which we understand is progressing in line with expectations,” Mr Mitchell said.
Corre, which floated on Euronext Dublin almost three years ago, said last month that it has hired investment bank Rothschild & Co to advise it on approaches it has had “from multiple parties” to invest in the company to provide it with additional funding for investment on projects and working capital.
Shares in the company have fallen by more than 85 per cent over the past 12 months. This has been partly down to a slump across the wider green energy sector amid a decline in energy prices and the weight of higher interest rates on this capital-intensive sector.
However, according to observers, it is also down to concerns about Corre having failed to sufficiently spell out the financial details of its various projects to allow investors assess their potential for profit.
Corre’s most advanced development is its Zuidwending (ZW1) project in the province of Groningen in the Netherlands. ZW1 will be capable of supplying up to 320MW of electricity to the grid for up to 3½ days and is due to come on stream around the end of 2026.
Other key projects include Corre’s 320MW Green Hydrogen Hub project in Denmark, another facility in the Netherlands (ZW2) and a plan to develop three compressed air energy storage plants in caverns secured last year in Germany.
Shares in Corre were hit in late February – falling below its €1 initial public offering price for the first time – when Mr Green stepped down as an executive director after a Singaporean company ultimately owned by him was named by UK tax authorities in relation to an alleged tax-avoidance scheme.
Mr Green told The Irish Times that he was “absolutely astonished” by the news and had not been a director of – or been involved in the running of – that company for years.
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