Novel sources of funding for entrepreneurial companies, the Greenergy experience

Imperial Business Insights Series lecture with Andrew Owens, Chief Executive, Greenergy.

Debt, bonds and equity are not the only way to fund a company. For new entrepreneurial companies with disruptive business models such funding may not be available anyway as the traditional funders will either not be able to fit you into a funding box, or will charge so much risk premium there will be nothing left for the entrepreneur.

Greenergy has grown from one man and to the biggest private company by sales in the UK. Today turnover is over £15 billion and at times of the month net cash on deposit can exceed £500million. Novel funding and the creation / management of working capital has been at the heart of the growth story. Andrew Owens will present a history of how the funding needs of Greenergy have changed over the years and how the company managed to fund itself ahead of the curve.

Andrew co-founded Greenergy in 1992 and has led the company from a bedroom start-up to one of the UK’s largest private companies, supplying 15 billion litres of fuel a year.

Andrew is a practising chemical engineer who graduated from Imperial College in 1983. His first job was as design engineer at Esso Fawley refinery and he then moved to London to take responsibility for refinery economics. After leaving Esso, Andrew held a number of commercial and trading positions in the oil industry in Belgium and Switzerland before setting up Greenergy as a “proper job avoidance strategy”.

Today Andrew leads Greenergy’s ongoing expansion in the UK and beyond.

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