Sanjeev Gupta takes first step on to London Stock Exchange with renewable energy venture

The Uskmouth Power Station
The Uskmouth Power Station, built in South Wales in the 1960s, is at the heart of plans to create a new listed renewable energy company  Credit: Andrew Hazard/GFG Alliance

Billionaire industrialist Sanjeev Gupta plans to create a new listed renewable energy giant by breathing life into tidal power company Atlantis Resources.

Aim-listed Atlantis will buy the aging Uskmouth coal plant in South Wales from Simec Energy, a subsidiary of Mr Gupta's $10bn turnaround group GFG Alliance.

In return Simec will take a 49.9pc stake in Atlantis, which will be renamed Simec Atlantis Energy.

The £200m plan will see Uskmouth converted from coal to burning renewable biomass pellets.

The deal creates a “highly-diversified, global green power enterprise”, which is expected to grow further through a string of similar deals with Simec Energy in the future. Simec is also behind plans for a string of remote Scottish tidal power turbines.

It also brings Atlantis into GFG Alliance and marks Mr Gupta’s first move into the London Stock Exchange.

GFG Alliance founder Sanjeev Gupta
GFG Alliance founder Sanjeev Gupta Credit: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg

Mr Gupta said: “This is the first GFG Alliance member to be listed on the public markets, which in itself is a very important milestone for us. In addition, the potential for this business to create enormous value in the renewable energy market in the near term is tangible and very exciting.”

The value of the deal was not disclosed, but is large enough to dwarf the £37m market value of Atlantis. As a result trading in the company’s shares have been suspended until the ‘reverse takeover’ completes early next year.

The Uskmouth plant, built in the 1960s, is expected to provide clean power to GFG’s ‘green steel’ plant in nearby Newport, which uses renewable power to recycle scrap metals.

Mr Gupta, who extended a rescue deal to the beleaguered Tata Steel business last year, plans to quadruple GFG’s steel-making capacity in the UK in the next five years. According to GFG around 6.6m tonnes of raw steel are imported to the UK and 7.2m tonnes of scrap steel are exported.

License this content