Carbon credits firm AgCert International is preparing to ask the High Court to put the Dublin-based business into examinership as it seeks to renegotiate contracts with customers after its greenhouse gas reduction projects failed to meet targets.
AgCert's shares on the Alternative Investment Market in London were suspended yesterday morning at the request of the company. The pre-suspension share price of 68 pence implies a market capitalisation of some £1.67 million (€2.22 million) on AgCert.
The firm was floated in 2005 at 140p per share and the stock reached 271.5p per share in April 2006.
The firm's finance director is Paul d'Alton, former chief financial officer of Bank of Ireland and Waterford Wedgwood.
Its non-executive directors include former Anglo Irish Bank chairman Peter Murray and former EU agriculture commissioner Dr Franz Fischler.
AgCert acquires emission reduction credits by modifying animal waste at farms in Mexico and Brazil, removing methane using its own "biodigestion" system.
AgCert sold more credits to carbon producers than it can now deliver because the technology did not live up to expectations.
"Examinership in Ireland entails a process whereby the company is put under the protection of the High Court in Ireland with a view to allowing a court-appointed examiner to formulate and put forward for approval a scheme of arrangement with its creditors and members," AgCert said.
Sources suggested the firm's problems were "not insurmountable" and that it had enough cash to continue as a going concern.
The sources would not say for how long AgCert can continue to trade without a successful renegotiation of outstanding contracts.
