(Alliance News) - Solar panel firm Verditek PLC on Thursday announced a share placing to continue developing its technology, as well as a new order in Nigeria.
Verditek is looking to raise GBP650,000 at a price of 4.5 pence per share, meaning it will issue 14.4 million new shares. Shares were up 13% at 4.02p on Thursday morning.
The funds will be used to push forward with growth plans, including operations at its Italian factory, and also fund a joint development programme announced in June.
Verditek said Non-Executive Director Gavin Mayhew will be subscribing for GBP200,000 of the shares.
Chief Executive Geoff Nesbitt said: "We have made the key transformation from proving and certifying our technology to selling it and while it is still early in this process, the commercial advantages of our lightweight solar panels are compelling as they are 90% lighter they generate the same amount of energy as conventional PV. We are looking forward to using these new funds to further grow our order book."
On the order front, Verditek has signed a "further material" order from a Nigerian distributor. This starts with a minimum of 1 megawatt bing delivered in the first year, and 3 megawatts in the second year.
Further orders are also under negotiation, the company continued, and Verditek is confident on new firm orders in the near future.
"The sales team is diligently converting the leads we have developed into orders, with a number of material opportunities under development. The tremendous growth forecast in renewable energy is just beginning and our experience to date indicates we are entering the market at the right time to inject our energy and products into this surge," said Nesbitt.
Verditek also released results for the six months to June, a period in which it looked to show off its technologies and secure new orders.
The pretax loss for the half was GBP898,648, narrowed slightly from GBP969,474 the year before. There was no revenue in either year.
"We are excited about the future of Verditek and believe the outlook remains very positive for both continued commercialisation of the lightweight solar modules and the graphene integrated PV cell technology," Nesbitt concluded.
By George Collard; georgecollard@alliancenews.com
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