Meet our experts in energy investment

Chris Kerr is an engineer specialising in renewable energy, synthetic and biogas sectors with over 30 years’ experience Chris started his career in 1990 with the Monson Group in Ireland. During his time here, he completed a professional apprenticeship, specialising in the design, installation and commissioning of multi-fuel steam, heat recovery and CHP systems. In 1993 he joined the commercial team at Monsons where he applied his practical experience and qualifications to a client facing role, selling and overseeing large scale energy efficiency and heat recovery schemes into such clients as United Mollases, Bombardier and a range of government clients.

Chris has subsequently held a range of Commercial Director, CEO and MD positions in a number of environmentally driven businesses, ranging from start-ups to a Global PLC. In 2010, following the Governments incentive schemes for renewable energy production, Chris became heavily involved in the renewable sector, and in particular the synthetic and biogas sectors, and was jointly responsible for conceiving and delivering a number of AD plants in Ireland and the UK from conception, through fund raise and onto commissioning and operations.

He has provided numerous well know funds with commercial and technical project assessment papers and assisted in raising over £60m of project capital, now deployed into a range of complex assets, with multiple counter party contracts, including EPC, O+M , Feedstock and PPA’S. The point of difference that Chris brings to the sector is his ability to assess the technical elements of each project and balance these with the commercial, financial and banking requirement, in some cases developing a suite of bespoke project contracts to deliver against innovative funder facility agreements.

Neil is a Fellow Chartered Accountant (FCA) and a Fellow of the Association of Business Recovery Professionals (FABRP) with 36 years’ experience.

Neil has 36 years of senior experience spanning corporate finance and restructuring, corporate and commercial banking and operational business management having spent significant time within industry at director level. As a corporate financier and restructuring specialist, Neil has originated and advised upon (both as a Lender, Investor and Principal) many corporate and asset based transactions with a combined value of over £2.5bn across a broad range of sectors. In addition, Neil has undertaken many corporate and personal business restructurings and insolvencies over his 28 years as both a UK and Irish Licensed Insolvency Practitioner.

Mr Adair trained with PwC, leaving the firm as a senior manager to become the corporate finance and restructuring partner in the Northern Ireland practice of RSM. He then went on to set up and establish the Northern Ireland operations of the former Anglo Irish Bank and was responsible for its commercial lending and treasury operations in Northern Ireland between 1996 to the end of 2004. From 2005 - 2012, Neil was the Managing Director and part owner of a substantial privately-owned property investment, development and diversified trading group headquartered in Northern Ireland.

In addition to being a co-founder and director of EAG, Neil also owns and runs his own corporate finance, restructuring and private-equity advisory and investment business and continues to hold his UK and Irish statutory insolvency licences. Neil is presently engaged as a consultant to 2 firms of Insolvency Accountants, in addition to acting as a Consultant to, and Investor within, another NI based private-equity investment firm. Neil is also currently a non-executive director of London listed public company, Rockpool Acquisitions PLC.

Thomas Cromie has been a central figure in the UK biogas industry for over 10 years and has a long list of academic publications ranging from the Circular bio-gas based economy, to lifecycle evaluation and optimisation of biogas plants.

He sits on numerous policy steering committees in Ireland including the Centre for Advanced Sustainable Energy (CASE) and has been directly involved in the industry led innovation to optimise the biogas process and increase outputs from AD plants.

Thomas has a 500kw on farm AD plant at his home farm, which has been running at more than 95% efficiency for the last 4 years and has actively managed the construction and ongoing operations of a number of AD plants on a client consultant basis.

Thomas’ broad sector knowledge and deep technical expertise has made him a leading figure in the technical due diligence field, when assessing AD plant performance and diagnostics.

Thomas has worked with Chris Kerr now for the last 10 years, during which they have developed a suite of robust AD project contracts, which are fully bankable, and carry appropriate levels of recourse in the context of each associated risk.

As an industrial mentor at Queens University, Thomas has been able to apply his academic and research skills into the commercial world, and his granular knowledge, particularly in the on-farm AD sector, makes him the perfect individual to assist with the assessment of each asset that EAG will are targeting. Thomas’ full CV is available for review on request.

Thomas will provide asset optimisation advice for both Ireland and UK subsidiaries of EAG.