Paul D'Alton, the former finance director of Waterford Wedgwood, is sitting on multi-million paper gain after his new employer, AgCert, floated in London yesterday.
Mr D'Alton, who is chief financial officer at AgCert, reportedly has part control of a company holding a block of 16.6 million of AgCert shares.
At the company's flotation price of 140p, this block of shares was worth some £23 million (€34 million) yesterday.
AgCert said yesterday morning that it had raised £54.1 million in a share placing before listing on the London Stock Exchange.
The company said it would invest the cash, raised through institutional investors, in its production operations, initially in Brazil and Mexico.
AgCert, based in Dublin's International Financial Services Centre, specialises in cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
Based on the placing price of 140 pence per share, AgCert's market capitalisation would be about £215 million, the firm said.
Conditional trading on the London Stock Exchange began yesterday, with admission to the official list and unconditional dealings to begin on Wednesday. The shares closed at 142.5p last night.
"We are delighted the company has received such a positive response from institutional investors," AgCert chief executive Alan Tank, said.
AgCert, which was set up in 2002 and operates in Europe, Asia, the United States and South America, provides technology called "biodigestion" to the agriculture sector to help cut methane emissions from slurry.
The firm then gains emission reduction credits, known as offsets, which it can sell to companies whose emissions exceed the limits laid down by the Kyoto treaty.
