Michael Bradley, CEO and co-founder of Solar 21
Solar 21 has said investors who put their money into its as-yet unbuilt North Lincolnshire Green Energy Park (NLGEPL) project “may recover approximately 90pc” of their initial investment.
But “considerable work” is needed to bring it to the point where project rights can be sold, the company’s update warned.
The new update projection comes as the long-time auditors of the four main Solar 21 fundraising companies resigned from each of them. They noted there were no matters with the resignations that needed brought to the attention of creditors. Solar 21 management issued the new update on the back of achieving development consent from the British government in March for the proposed project.
There was no estimate for returns to investors in Solar 21’s Teeside scheme
At the time, it promised to provide an estimate of returns within days, but this was delayed.
“There is understandable and legitimate pressure from brokers and investors to publish the number quickly,” it said subsequently, blaming the workload around asset sales for the delay.
In its latest update to investors, the investment firm has now said that EY had placed a potential “lower-end” valuation of £235m for a “project rights sale” of NLGEPL.
Based on this figure, Solar 21 now had a “current internal estimate” that investors may recover approximately 90pc of the initial investment.
The update did not give any estimate for returns to investors with money in Solar 21’s Teeside scheme that is not covered by the High Court plan.
In its last update report at the end of March, consultant Alvarez & Marsal, which is supervising Solar 21’s High Court-approved restructuring scheme, said that it had not been engaged by Solar 21 to assist with the new analysis of investor returns, so as “to reduce professional costs”.
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