Corre Energy, the Dublin-listed renewable energy storage developer, said it has hired investment bank Rothschild & Co to advise it on approaches it has had “from multiple parties” to invest in the company.
“A process with these investors is ongoing to provide additional funding for capital expenditure for the various projects and working capital,” Corre said on Wednesday. “There is no certainty that any investment will be made nor on the size and structure of such an investment.”
The company first disclosed that it had received investment interest from a number of parties on March 25th.
Shares in Corre, which floated on Euronext Dublin in September 2021, rose 5.5 per cent to 85 cents in Dublin. However, they remain down 71 per cent over the past 12 months.
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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 of 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.
Corre also, more recently, targeted the US market, signing a deal in Texas last July, giving it an option to buy a 280MW compressed air energy storage project.
Shares in Corre were hit in late February – falling below its €1 initial public offering price for the first time – when founding director and big shareholder, Darren Patrick 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. He said he remains committed to the 38 per cent stake he owns in Corre. But it is perceived by the market as an overhang.
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