Companies: DOO    PCX   

South African corporate activist Brian Myerson has joined the board of bombed-out biodiesel producer D1 Oils (ticker: DOO), of which Myerson’s Principle Capital is its biggest shareholder, not long before a trading update sent the former’s shares gushing up almost 40 per cent. As chief executive of activist investment group Principle Capital, which he launched on AIM after winding up his aggressive Active Value partnership with countryman Julian Treger, Myerson is still one of the busiest shareholders on the markets.

Last year Principle tried but failed to take over nursery school group Nord Anglia and forced a boardroom reshuffle at Photo Me International, reminding City folk of Active Value’s hounding of such prominent names as Kenwood, Liberty and Pilkington. Principle showed a loss on investments for 2007, though advisory fees nearly tripled to £3.4 million from a 113 per cent increase in fee-earning assets under management to £294 million. Principle first invested in D1 as part of the biofuel company’s fundraising in 2006 and now holds 27.1 per cent.

A missive to the market from AIM-listed D1 two weeks after Myerson’s appointment confirmed its withdrawal from refining and trading, and that its entry into plant science and planting was proceeding as planned. With £19.9 million cash and sowing of its jatropha plants already under way in India, the group is confident of having 300,000 hectares growing by the end of the year and being cash-positive until ‘the end of 2009’.