The administrators of a renewable energy specialist that operated wind turbines around the UK have appointed CAPA to help recover funds for creditors – which include the firm’s bondholders.
Interpath Advisory, the corporate advisory and restructuring firm set up by former KPMG partners, has instructed CAPA to conduct audits on various sites operated by Edinburgh-based Future Renewables Eco (FRE), after the energy firm entered insolvency in September.
Future Renewables owned and operated 10 wind turbines across nine sites throughout England, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Established in 2015, the company was founded with the aim to maximise revenue and encourage a sustainable approach to electricity generation.
The business has no staff and used contractors to maintain the turbines. It is predominantly funded by 750 bondholders who invested £24m between 2015 and 2017.
Each turbine site generates profit after operational costs but this was insufficient to cover bondholders’ interest payments.
The issue resulted in cashflow challenges which FRE tried to overcome by seeking a variation to the bondholders’ debt terms.
Due to the volume of votes against the proposal, the FRE directors placed the group into administration, with Alistair Mcalinden and Blair Nimmo from Interpath appointed joint administrators on September 17.
Interpath is continuing to operate the turbines with a view to selling the business’s assets and maximise creditor returns.
With that aim in mind, the administrators have instructed CAPA to undertake rates audits of the turbine sites plus two other office locations the company occupied.
CAPA’s audit team will use bespoke software to conduct a forensic analysis of information on rates paid to the local authority by FRE.
The team will inspect the data to detect any overpayments before recovering any overpaid sums for the creditors of FRE – including the bondholders.
