Paul O'Donoghue

WHAT A TIME to be a company listed on the Irish stock exchange.

If you’re one of the big guys at the top, you’re probably having the time of your life.

Valuations of the largest businesses have soared in the last two years. Most of the biggest Irish firms have either enjoyed big market cap bumps, or have left to go to the US, to get an even bigger bump.

But if you’re one of the small guys…things probably aren’t looking so rosy.

Many of these businesses have been struggling to raise funding or have had cashflow issues.

Enter Corre Energy, a ‘clean-tech’ firm which this week finalised a decision to delist from the Irish stock exchange starting next week.

Clean energy solution

But, what is Corre Energy? 

At first glance, it may seem the choice to list in Dublin was a slightly strange one.

The firm is a Dutch business which is focused on renewable energy storage facilities, as well as the production and sale of green hydrogen.

A key issue in renewable energy is ensuring that there is a steady stream of clean power. The output from the likes of wind farms can be variable, producing more energy when there are strong winds and less when it’s calm. This isn’t ideal for the modern economy, which essentially needs guaranteed power 24/7, meaning wind farms sometimes have to be powered by fossil fuels when the wind isn’t blowing.

Corre says it is finding a clean solution to this issue.

For example, a key project would see renewable electricity to store compressed air in underground salt caverns, which could then be combined with green hydrogen to generate electricity.

Corre is mostly active in the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark. But in 2021, the firm decided to list its shares on the Euronext Dublin exchange.

Irish connection

A key Irish connection seems to have come from Keith McGrane, Corre’s co-founder and then-chief executive.

McGrane lives in Dublin, went to university at UCD, and cut his teeth at the likes of Gaelectric, a Dublin-based wind farm developer, where he led the company’s energy storage division.

The listing was a success, raising €12m from investors at €1 a share in September 2021. The deal came at a good time, with stock prices rising globally after the first Covid lockdown, and widespread interest in green energy. 

Corre was valued at €64m, and seemed to be going from strength to strength with its plans to store clean energy.

Wins and deals

In late 2022, the firm announced its biggest win to date – it had landed a 15 year deal with Eneco, a major Dutch energy company, to provide compressed air energy storage to projects in the Netherlands.

Corre also seemed to be making progress on other deals, such as an initiative in Denmark which involved the Danish state-owned grid operator, Energinet, and said it had identified more potential project sites in Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands.

Optimism from investors combined with more interest in energy security generally, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent electricity prices soaring across Europe.

These factors helped push Corre’s stock price to almost €4 per share in February 2023, valuing the business at approximately €240m. It also made it one of the best performers in the Irish stock exchange.

But there were always two potential long-term issues for Corre – time and money.

The type of large energy projects the business works with often take years to prepare, and then years more to actually develop to completion.

They also tend to require massive amounts of cash upfront.

It was reported in 2023 that it could take as long as five years for Corre to just get its first project underway. The size of the business also meant that it would always be reliant on the decisions of larger companies to fund developments.

But investors seemed to be in for the long haul with Corre, perhaps hoping that the firm would get bought out by a larger energy business.

Share price slide

However, just over a year ago, things began to unravel.

First, Corre’s shares started to slide in late 2023.

The price quickly dropped from €3 in late November 2023, to about €0.50 by mid-May 2024.

This was blamed on a mix of factors, including a general stock market slowdown. There was also said to be frustration from Corre investors over a lack of detail around some of its announcements, such as not announcing how much money it would make from certain projects.

This was exacerbated when Darren Patrick Green, Corre’s president, an executive director and the company’s largest shareholder, stepped down in February 2024 following a tax investigation into another of his companies (with no link to Corre) over an alleged tax avoidance scheme.

HMRC – the UK’s equivalent to the Revenue Commissioners – was investigating whether the former Corre director was involved in a complicated tax avoidance scheme which involved moving money offshore using a Singapore-based company.

Patrick Green told The Irish Times that he was “absolutely astonished” by the news and had not been a director of – or been involved in the running of – the Singaporean company for years.

He also said he was committed to holding the 38% of Corre that he owned. Corre issued a brief statement at the time, announcing the resignation and adding that the move was “unrelated to the activities of Corre Energy”. 

A few weeks later, the firm announced it had received “multiple indications of interest to invest in the company”, which caused a brief share price recovery.

Nevertheless, investors may have been spooked and Corre’s share price continued to fall, dropping to just €0.12 by late August 2024.

There was again a brief recovery when Corre announced that the investment process it announced was “progressing”, which led to shares rising back to almost €0.50.

However, there were hints of more issues when the company mentioned it was trying to find “short-term working capital requirements”.

Corre also revealed that almost 20% of the shares in the business were transferred from one of the firm’s founding shareholders to pay off a loan, another possible sign of instability.

Delist decision

By March of this year, Corre had been searching for an outside investor to help shore up its finances for almost a year. It was raising emergency loans from investors, and was down to its last €2.5m in cash.

Corre said at the start of the month it planned to delist from the Irish stock exchange. It said this was because it had found potential funding solutions which were “outside the public markets”, without giving further details.

“The board believes that maintaining a listing on Euronext Growth Dublin is unlikely to offer the most effective or cost-efficient path to securing this funding,” Corre told investors.

On Friday, Corre’s shareholders approved the decision, meaning the company’s last day of trading will be March 27.

The firm’s share price has hit an all-time low in recent days, putting its valuation at just €7m. 

The company’s supporters will hope the decision to revert to a private business will mean a bigger investor finally can be tempted in. 

And hopefully Corre can finally deliver on what seemed so promising just a few years ago.