Corre raises total €2.76m in cash call as talks with ‘strategic’ investors continue

Green energy slump contributes to 85% decline in shares over 12 months

Corre Energy is in talks with a number of third parties seeking to take a significant stake in the business.
Corre Energy is in talks with a number of third parties seeking to take a significant stake in the business.

Corre Energy, the storage developer for renewable energy, has raised a total of €2.76 million in share sales in the past week as it sought to raise cash to keep it going for the near term as it continues talks with investors looking at taking a large stake in the business.

The company said on Wednesday it raised €640,000 selling shares the previous day to existing shareholders, having last week placed €2.12 million with founders and a large long-standing investor.

The cash call has been designed to tide the company over as it continues talks to third parties interested in making a significant “strategic investment” in a business that was down to just €1.08 million of cash at the end of last year.

The company’s founding shareholders include former director Darren Patrick Green, who stepped down in February, chief executive Keith McGrane and businessman Brendan Boyd.

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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 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.

Joe Brennan

Joe Brennan

Joe Brennan is Markets Correspondent of The Irish Times