Edinburgh tidal energy firm announces change of finance chief

Scottish tidal energy pioneer Atlantis Resources has announced that its chief finance officer is to stand down later this month.

The announcement comes after last week’s news that Atlantis had raised £5 million under a five year bond.

The Edinburgh group, which is behind the Meygen project in the Pentland Firth, revealed on Monday that Simon Counsell will leave the firm to pursue other business interests.

He will be replaced by its head of corporate finance, Andrew Dagley.

Counsell has been with Atlantis since October 2015 and led the finance team through a relocation from Singapore to Edinburgh. Dagley joined Atlantis before its IPO in 2014.

Tim Cornelius, chief executive of Atlantis, paid tribute to Counsell’s work in building a “highly competent team”.

“On behalf of the board, I would like to thank Simon for his efforts and wish him the very best for his future endeavours.”

He added: “I am delighted that Andrew will have the opportunity to join the operations board as CFO. Andrew joined Atlantis in 2014 and has been an integral part of the team since then. He worked on the IPO, the acquisition of Marine Current Turbines from Siemens AG and the financial close of MeyGen Phase 1A. He brings a wealth of experience in global renewable energy generation and we all look forward to working with him as we continue to build on Atlantis’s successes.”

Annual figures show Atlantis entered the red last year despite the Meygen project coming on stream.

The company, whose financial backers include Scottish Enterprise, saw losses of £7.3 million in 2016 compared to a profit of £2.03 million the previous year, although the 2015 figure had included one-off gains of more than £10 million.