The Board of eEnergy Group plc (AIM: EAAS), a leading “Energy Efficiency-as-a-Service” (EEaaS) business in the UK and Ireland, is pleased to announce that it has conditionally agreed to acquire the entire issued and to be issued capital of Beond Group Limited (“Beond”), a renewable energy consulting and procurement business with operations in the UK (the “Acquisition”).

The total consideration for the Acquisition (which includes £0.7 million of surplus cash in the business) comprises approximately £2.4 million in cash (the “Cash Consideration”) and the issue of 64,948,456 consideration shares (the “Consideration Shares”).

The cash component will be funded through a Placing of a minimum of £3.0 million (gross) to new and existing institutional and other investors, at a Placing Price of 10.0 pence per Placing Share.

The Placing is being conducted by means of an accelerated bookbuild process (“ABB”), which will be launched immediately following this Announcement.

Key transaction highlights include:

• eEnergy has agreed to acquire Beond, a top 20 renewable energy consulting and procurement business, whose services aim to reduce costs for clients and tackle climate change. Its key offering is its proprietary platform used to run renewable energy reverse auctions for clients;
• Total consideration for the Acquisition (which includes £0.7 million of surplus cash) will be funded through approximately £2.4 million in Cash Consideration and 64,948,456 Consideration Shares;
• The Acquisition is in-line with eEnergy’s stated strategy to develop as a broader Energy Services company through its “buy and build” acquisition strategy, targeting adjacent businesses with energy management and efficiency capabilities, which offer strategic and synergistic growth opportunities;
• There is a strong strategic rationale for the Acquisition, which has delivered consistent organic growth: Beond will bring a scalable technology platform with organic upside potential, as well as a highly complementary customer bases and improved earnings quality to eEnergy;
• For the year to 31 December 2019, Beond’s revenue grew 10.5% to £3.3 million, with EBITDA of approximately £0.5 million at a margin of 14.1%;
• Following the expected benefits of operational efficiencies and further growth initiatives post-Acquisition, the Board of eEnergy expects Beond to generate:
  • revenue growth at an annual average rate of 22% from the year to 31 December 2020 to 31 December 2022;
  • base case EBITDA for the year to 31 December 2021 of approximately £0.8 million;
  • EBITDA margin improvement from 14% for the year to 31 December 2019 to 28% for the year to 31 December 2022;
• The Acquisition is expected to be materially earnings enhancing in the first full year of ownership;
• CEO of Beond, Derek Myers, will join the Board of eEnergy on Admission;
• An integration team, led by new (non-Board) Chief Operating Officer, Robert Van Leeuwen, is expected to work closely with the Beond management team and oversee initiatives to accelerate growth, including enhancing the customer value proposition, growing revenues from existing customers and unlocking operational synergies and target stretch performance in lead generation and sales conversions;
• The Acquisition is to be part funded through a Placing for a minimum of £3.0 million at 10.0 pence per Placing Share, to be conducted by way of an ABB. The Placing price represents a discount of 3.8 per cent. to the closing mid-market price for eEnergy Ordinary Shares of 10.4 pence on 10 December 2020;
• The Placing is not conditional on shareholder approval. The Placing and Acquisition are inter-conditional; and
• The ABB will be launched immediately following this Announcement. N+1 Singer Capital Markets Limited (“N+1 Singer”) and Turner Pope Investments (TPI) Limited (“Turner Pope”) are acting as joint bookrunners (together the “Joint Bookrunners”) in connection with the Placing.

Harvey Sinclair, CEO of eEnergy, commented:

“The acquisition of Beond is the next step in our journey to delivering a sustainable future for our clients. Beond’s, a climate action business, leverages award-winning technology to secure the best zero carbon energy supply for their customers. With a focus on energy management, their technology will add significant value to eEnergy’s existing client base by helping to make ‘Net Zero’ a reality. Beond’s platform is one of a very small number of specialised reverse auction technologies available to customers, securing the best priced zero carbon energy through a highly competitive auction process.

“Beond’s customer base is highly complementary to our own and should provide substantial energy efficiency opportunities for our Light-as-a-Service offering alongside the future “as-a-Service” offerings we intend to bring to market. I would like to welcome Derek and the Beond team to the eEnergy family”.

In the short interview below Harvey Sinclair, the Group’s CEO, highlights eEnergy’s growth strategy and how the company perfored during the lockdown period.

eEnergy Group Investor Overview Video