Finavera director resigns over potential conflict

FINAVERA DIRECTOR Ian Harvey has resigned over a conflict of interests with a potential buyer for the Irish-Canadian wind energy business.

Toronto-listed Finavera hired Capital West Partners last week to advise on a number of offers for the company.

The group is in talks with four potential bidders.

Days later, Mr Harvey, an accountant based in Larne, Co Antrim, resigned as a director, citing a potential conflict with a bidder for the business.

Mr Harvey is also a director of the Larne-based B9 group of companies, which has interests in wind farms in Ireland and Britain and a number of other energy operations.

B9 is not one of the four organisations that have expressed interest in Finavera.

Mr Harvey said yesterday he was not in position to comment further on his decision to resign from its board.

Finavera is a shareholder in the Cloosh Valley wind farm development in Co Galway, along with State forestry company Coillte and SSE, formerly Scottish and Southern Energy.

The company is involved in four projects in British Columbia in Canada, for which it has secured power purchase agreements. It is due to begin building the first of these early next year.

Finavera Wind Energy was one of two divisions of the Finavera group, which was founded in the Republic in 2003 by Jason Bak – its current chief executive – Tom Davitt, Damian Reynolds and Stephen McCarron, all of whom had a background in the exploration industry.

The following year it concluded a reverse takeover of Vancouver-based Cascade Minerals and shifted its focus to Canada. It subsequently floated on the Toronto market. At the time, Mr Bak was critical of the lack of funds and support available for developing companies in Ireland.

Finavera held the licence options for the Lough Allen basin, covering Cavan, Fermanagh, Leitrim and Sligo, which have since passed to Tamboran and the Lough Allen Natural Gas Company.

In 2006, Finavera said its technical tests revealed the area held 9.4 trillion cubic feet of gas.

It subsequently allowed the licence options to lapse, and the company which held the options, Finavera Gas, has been dissolved.