Agcert to float on London market at EUR400m

An Irish company specialising in cutting greenhouse gas emissions is to list on the London Stock Exchange in a flotation likely to value it at €400 million.

Agcert, whose chief financial officer Paul D'Alton held the same position at Waterford Wedgewood, Bank of Ireland and Aer Lingus, will announce this week that it intends to seek a full listing on the London market next month.

The company is based in Dublin's International Financial Services Centre (IFSC), but does most of its business in Central America and Europe.

Agcert will place its shares with institutional investors in the UK and continental Europe. There is no figure available for the amount of cash it is planning to raise, but The Irish Times understands that the flotation will value it at around €400 million. The company will use the money raised to further develop its business, to increase its profile and attract more staff.

It is planning to be one of the first businesses to exploit a global market for certificates that allow big utilities to reduce their net greenhouse gas emissions. Analysts estimate that this will be worth €34 billion by 2010.

The market has been created by the terms of the Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement aimed at reducing global greenhhouse gas emissions.

Agcert operates by providing farmers in Central America with technology, known as biodigestion, that extracts and burns off methane from pig manure.

Currently, most farmers in the region allow the manure to build up in open pits, creating a health hazard, and producing large quantities of methane, a greenhouse gas.

Farming produces around 20 per cent of the greenhouse gases believed to be a major contributor to global warming and climate change.

Agcert's technology, which involves putting the manure in sealed units, eliminates the methane and cuts greenhouse emissions by 95 per cent. The system also provides the farmers with a safe form of fertiliser.

The UN certifies the emission reductions, which allows Agcert to "convert" them into tradeable instruments called offsets.

The Kyoto Protocol, which came into effect this year, obliges businesses whose emissions exceed the limits laid down in its terms to buy these offsets or face financial penalties.

This reduces their net emissions and effectively means that businesses producing large amounts of gas pay for reductions in output in other industries, thus bringing down the overall level of greenhouse emissions.

Agcert has completed €69 million worth of contracts for the sale of offsets with a number of companies, including multi-national steel and metals producer, BHP Billiton, UK energy company, EDF, and Dutch utility, Nuon.

On the production side, it has agreements with 500 farms to supply them with the biodigestion technology. The farmers will also get a share of the offset earnings.

Along with Mr D'Alton, its board includes chief executive and co-founder, US agricultural scientist, Al Tank. Former EU Agriculture and Fisheries Commissioner, Franz Fischler, former Anglo Irish Bank chairman, Peter Murray, and former Cookson Group chair, Robert Malpas, are non-executive directors.

Mr D'Alton said yesterday that he joined the company because it was seeking someone known to both the Dublin and London financial communities.

"I think this is an industry whose time has very much come," he said. "Its future prospects and potential are very good and I was impressed by both the business model and the people involved."