European Green Transition (EGT), a company developing a range of assets aimed at capitalising on the opportunity of the green transition and which is chaired by Cathal Friel, is to list on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) in London.
The initial public offering would be the fifth led by Mr Friel who has previously had success with the flotation of companies such as Cove Energy, Open Orphan (now hVIVO) and Amryt.
Mr Friel owns 43.8% of EGT, with CEO Aiden Lavelle holding 6.9% and CFO Jack Kelly owning 3.2%.
Michael Nolan, founder of Cove Energy, has 11.6% of the remaining shares, with Ian O'Connell, the co-founder of hVIVO and Poolbeg Pharma owns 7.1% and Caroline McNicholas, the former group financial controller of hVIVO holds 0.6%.
"We feel there is a significant opportunity to realise returns across Europe as part of the green economy transition," said Aiden Lavelle.
"Through EGT’s disciplined M&A focused model, we have already acquired an exciting portfolio of assets, including the Olserum Rare Earth Element (REE) project in southern Sweden. Olserum has the potential to be progressed to become Europe’s first commercial stage rare earth mine and we will look to monetise this project with larger industry players or financial investors in the near future."
"Furthermore, we have built an M&A growth pipeline of opportunistic distressed and undervalued assets, which we believe we can acquire for a fraction of the capital that has previously been invested."
The team behind EGT has a significant track record in buying such distressed and undervalued assets and turning them around.
Following a £1m IPO in 2009, Cove Energy bought distressed assets from the Artumas Group in Mozambique and 33 months later sold them for $1.9bn.
While after an IPO in 2016, Amyrt Pharma acquired distressed assets of Birken, Aegerion and Chiasma, and sold them last year for $1.48bn.
And following a 2019 IPO raising around £14m, Open Orphan bought distressed assets of Venn and hVIVO.
Today the company, now called hVIVO has a current market capitalisation of £200m.
"We are very excited by the scale of the opportunities created by the green economy transition in Europe," said Cathal Friel.
"We are applying our M&A focused approach of targeting distressed and undervalued assets towards prospects in the green economy. This approach has already generated success, delivering value across a range of public companies, namely Cove Energy plc, Amryt Pharma plc and hVIVO plc. We aim to repeat this formula with EGT."
"We have chosen to list in London as we are very confident in its depth of capital and talent, and its unique understanding of green economy projects. London is a world leading capital market for small cap companies, and in particular for Europeanfocused businesses with strong credentials to support the energy transition, such as European Green Transition."
