Environmental science technology group Accsys Technologies has become the first company with a dual listing on both AIM and Euronext Amsterdam, having raised €20.5 million (£14.4 million) to advance its technology with wood industry transformation potential.

New and existing shares were sold at €4.10 enabling a broader band of backers away from London to invest in Accsys, whose manufacturing facilities are based in Arnhem in the Netherlands. Chairman and chief executive William Paterson-Brown will employ the funds to double capacity of the Arnhem plant to advance the group’s wood fibre technology for panel products ‘to a commercial scale’.

The key technology is a process known as ‘acetylation’, which converts softwoods into hardwoods. Acetylated wood offers major environmental and quality benefits over comparative products, whether conventional softwood, hardwood, metal or UPVC (unplasticised poly vinyl chloride).

Accsys, listed on AIM in 2005 with a €27 million funding at the equivalent of 69p a share, is already producing commercial volumes of acetylated wood for customers and potential licensees in Arnhem and analysts believe its high-margin, royalty-based model should lead to profitability in the current year. Last year to March, Accsys lost €8.7 million, though a positive swing to €7.8 million from turnover of €29.8 million is forecast this year.

Paterson-Brown sees a huge opportunity for the company’s technology, buoyed by growing concerns about tropical rainforest destruction, declining global stocks of high-quality timber and rising levels of red tape monitoring the use of wood treated with toxic chemicals. At 280p in London, Accsys is currently valued at £430 million.

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