EGT posts full year results, Friel to become executive chairman
European Green Transition () booked a loss of £2.1 million in the year to 31 December 2024, a considerable increase on the £700,000 loss recorded a year earlier.
Cash in the bank at period end stood at just under £3.7 million.
2024 was a year in which the company achieved a huge amount. It listed on Aim in April, raising gross proceeds of £6.46 million, and then got down to work preparing its Olserum rare earth elements project for sale or partnership by completing a 1,500 metre drill programme.
It’s now thought that Olserum, which is in Sweden, has district-scale potential for rare earths.
During the period the company also signed an exclusive 12-month option to acquire the rights to generate carbon and biodiversity credits at the Altan Carbon Credit project, a peatland carbon sink programme in Donegal.
Going forward, the plan is to execute a strategy of acquiring distressed, revenue generating businesses in the green economy.
To that end, from the conclusion of the 2025 annual general meeting, the company’s co-founder, largest shareholder and non-executive chairman, Cathal Friel, will assume the role of executive chairman.
The appointment follows Friel’s decision to step down from his role as non-executive chairman of hVIVO, effective from 5 June 2025, a position he has held for eight years. Having co-founded hVIVO in 2017 as Open Orphan, Friel identified two distressed, loss-making businesses and transformed them into the world leader in the testing of vaccines and antivirals using human challenge trials.
“2024 was a foundational year for the business, during which we achieved many significant milestones including EGT’s IPO on the London Stock Exchange, and the successful execution of our low-cost drill programme at the Olserum REE project in Sweden,” said Friel.
“The work performed at the Olserum REE project has proved the district scale potential for REEs at Olserum and will support the sale or partnership of the project. The current geopolitical environment, specifically the tensions between Trump’s new US administration and China, has led to China barring the export of certain rare earths. The importance of rare earths to the global economy is highlighted by President Trump’s mineral rights deal in Ukraine where he is attempting to secure future access rights to Ukraine’s rare earth assets. The Ukraine deal and China’s rare earth export bans have resulted in a substantial increase in interest in our Olserum REE project in Sweden.”
View from Vox
Friel’s experience and previous success in M&A speaks for itself and his new focus on European Green Transition ought to benefit the company considerably. It will be interesting to see exactly what deals do turn up, but don’t expect them necessarily to be mining-related.
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