Ipswich-based renewable energy business Geotrupes hopes to raise up to £7 million with an AIM placing in mid-June.

Geotrupes already has an energy contracting business, providing long-term power purchase agreements and already boasts three such projects in its portfolio. The AIM listing should enable the company to extend its reach towards funding and managing early-stage planning activities for small (less than 20 megawatts) renewable energy projects – wind farms, hydroelectric power and biomass energy production.

The renewable energy sector received a boost this week when prime minister Tony Blair announced that ‘a big push on renewables’ was ‘back on the agenda with a vengeance’ in a speech to industrialists. The Government is targeting 10.4 per cent of the UK’s energy to come from renewable sources by 2010, good news for such companies as Geotrupes.

Planning stages here are usually high risk, costing anything up to £150,000 with few guarantees. Geotrupes intends to mitigate this risk for developers, ‘while maximising return on investment, by working across a portfolio of projects’.

The focus will be on helping to secure planning permission and to raise finance for construction – complimenting the company's output-purchasing arm. Once the consents have been secured, Geotrupes will sell the projects at the pre-construction value and recycle gains into further pre-planning funding work.

‘This is not a “Plan A failed so let’s try Plan B” situation’, says chief executive officer James Dunning, ‘it’s an organic growth story.’ Supported by chairman David Jefferies, former chair of the London Electricity Board and of National Grid Group, and director Ashley Turner, who has over 25 years energy experience, Dunning is bullish about the group's prospects.

Analyst Kevin Fogarty at house broker and nominated adviser Insinger de Beaufort predicts the company will become profitable in the year to March 2008, when he envisages pre-tax profits of £2.3 million on almost £5.8 million sales, with £3.7m pre-tax on £8.7m turnover on the cards for 2008-09. Geotrupes is one worth keeping an eye on.

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