Wasabi spices up AIM

Wasabi Energy has become the latest sustainable technology firm to quote its shares on the Alternative Investment Market, following a flurry of cleantech businesses choosing London’s junior market as a home for their shares in recent months.
In connection with its AIM debut the firm placed more than 445 million shares at 1.1p each, raising £4.9 million. On its first day of trading on AIM the share price closed at 2.1p.

Wasabi, a Melbourne-based business that is also listed on the Australian Securities Exchange, has taken strategic positions in three innovative energy and resource-based ventures. These include:
•    A 50% stake in Aqua Guardian Group, which owns a modular evaporation control system targeted at markets such as agriculture, mining and urban water storage.
•    A 23.3% stake in Australian Renewable Fuels, an ASX-listed firm that currently produces biodiesel at two plants in South Australia and Western Australia.
•    A 95% interest in Global Geothermal, which owns and controls the Kalina Cycle – a highly efficient thermal power generation technology that Wasabi believes has significant potential in both geothermal and waste heat applications.

Executive chairman John Byrne, a natural resources industry veteran, stressed to Quoted Cleantech that Wasabi plans to play an active role in the direction its subsidiaries take. “We don’t want Wasabi to be seen as an investment company or a holding company. We aim to be an operator,” he said.

Wasabi’s arrival on AIM follows the IPOs of Caparo Energy, an Indian wind power business, and HaloSource, a US-based water treatment technology firm, in October.
Market: AIM
Symbol: WAS
Price: 2.1p
12-month high/low: 2.4p/1.5p
Market cap: £40.8m
 

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