Investors back Helius drive to raise £6.5m in share placing

A GROUP of investors, including shipping scion Alastair Salvesen and Stagecoach co-founder Ann Gloag, are pumping cash into Helius Energy, the firm behind a distillery waste-to-heat plant at Rothes, in Moray.

Aim-quoted Helius wants to raise about £6.5 million through a share placing at 16p each, a 14 per cent premium to Tuesday’s closing price.

If the deal is given the go ahead at a shareholder meeting on 21 October, then the company will use the cash to strength its balance sheet, following a £7.9m investment in its Rothes project back in April.

Solid residue, or “draff”, from local distilleries will be taken to the Moray site and burned along with wood to provide up to 7.2 megawatts (MW) of electricity, enough to power 9,000 homes.

Steam created by the process will be used to evaporate liquid residue – or “pot ale” – into a syrup, which can then be used to make animal feed.

Dutch lender Rabobank took an equity stake in the £60.5m project, which is expected to begin production in 2013, while Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland pumped in about £42.4m of debt funding.

Helius – in which Perthshire investor Angus MacDonald held a 23 per cent stake before the share placing – said that the plant will be built next to an existing animal feed factory owned by the Combination of Rothes Distilleries (Cord), a joint venture set up in 1904 to process whisky waste.

Cord handles by-products from 16 Speyside distilleries. It is owned by a consortium of Edrington Group, Chivas Brothers, Glen Grant Distillery, Inver House Distillers, Diageo Distilling, BenRiach Distillery and John Dewar & Sons.

Following the share placing, Salvesen will hold a 20 per cent stake in the company, while Gloag will have a 3.6 per cent shareholding.

Cash from the placing will be used to fund the development of a biomass plant in Avonmouth.