Experience
Neal joined Grant Thornton in 2020 with 18 years of financial services experience, having worked for 12 years in the banking sector and 6 years in corporate finance, most recently spending 3 years with a Big Four firm.
Neal is a Chartered Accountant with over 20 years of financial services experience, including 12 years in Banking and 8 years in Corporate Finance. His current role is Director in Corporate Finance and Head of Energy & Infrastructure (E&I) at Grant Thornton NI. Neal is also a Non-Executive Director (appointed November 2020) at Action Renewables Energy Trading Ltd, a company trading in excess of £50m of electricity and subsidies for clients, with all profits gifted to a parent charity to fund renewable energy projects across NI.
Sector Experience
Neal has advised on a wide range of E&I investments with a total value of £1.5bn. Lead advisory work includes transaction structuring, due diligence, funding advice and completion assistance (buy-side); and marketing, negotiation and completion assistance (sell-side). Selected experience below.
Neal’s recent experience includes:
- Acquisition of a 28MW biomass plant providing electric and district heating;
- Acquisition of a 19MW portfolio of 6 electric and gas-to-grid AD plants ;
- Acquisition of a 277MW ready-to-build wind farm in Sweden;
- Acquisition of 2 materials recycling facilities processing 250,000 tonnes of waste per annum;
- Acquisition of a renewable energy management and operational services company;
- Disposal of 9 electric AD plants, including a 3MW plant that is NI’s second largest and the world’s first to run on 100% chicken litter;
- Provided advice to support a bid for three wind farms (170MW total capacity) in Norway/Sweden;
- Provided advice to support a bid for a materials recycling facility processing 150,000 tonnes of waste per annum;
- Completed a number of bioenergy business reviews, financial model reviews and valuations; and
- Completed valuations for battery storage projects (50MW and 100MW/200MWh).
