Leading shareholders in Corre Energy have moved to secure board seats at the embattled renewable energy storage developer after clubbing together last month to provide a €5 million loan to tide it over as it continues to seek long-term investment.
Northern Irish property developer Frank Boyd, whose Stream Street vehicle recently took at 19.3 per cent stake in Corre, has been nominated as a non-executive director of the Dublin-listed, but Dutch-based company.
Stephen Carolan of businessman Nick Furlong’s Pageant Investments and Gemma Monaghan of Air Corre, a renewable energy firm run by Mr Boyd’s son, Brendan, are also set to join the board, subject to shareholder approval at an extraordinary general meeting on October 7th.
Both firms are key investors in Corre and participants in the stopgap debt facility, which is convertible into ordinary shares after six months at a value of twice the outstanding loan amount.
A UK tech executive and company shareholder, George Fraser, has also been named as a board nominee. The board update was announced by the company in a statement on Friday.
The incoming board intends to appoint further independent non-executive directors in the coming weeks and is also considering the appointment of an additional executive director alongside its existing executive, Keith McGrane, Corre added.
Corre, which plans to publish interim results on Monday, has seen its shares slide 90 per cent over the past 12 months amid concerns over funding, board exits and revelations about loans to its founding shareholder, Corre Energy Group Holdings, that had been secured against shares in the listed company.
The company hired investment bank Rothschild in April to advise on securing major investment to advance its main projects. A deal has yet to emerge from that process.
Corre entered into a joint venture in early July with a Dutch company to develop its most advanced project, based in the Netherlands. The so-called Zuidwending (ZW1) project will be capable of supplying up to 320 megawatts (MW) of electricity to the grid and is due to come on stream at 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.
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