Biodiesel is holy grail for Viridas

THERE’S one theme uniting Viridas’s diverse investments – blind faith and optimism.

The Leeds-based Alternative Investment Market (AIM) quoted firm, which changed its name from Caldwell Investments to Viridas in July – has certainly endured peaks and troughs in its fortunes over the past few years.

And it seems that turbulent times are set to continue in the short-term. The decline in the market for its Nina Clip baby buggy parasol and the long-term prospects of its German underwear distribution business were described today as “negative” as it posted half year results.

Turnover in the six months to August 31 dropped from £3,2m in 2006 to £2.5m. The firm reported a pre-tax loss of £283,969 – up from £263,011 for the same period in the previous year.

Viridas said the loss included costs associated with managing out the group’s existing baby buggy parasol business and reducing the scale of its existing underwear business.

But it also included investment in the firm’s next venture – biodiesel, which was announced earlier this year by Stanley Wootliff, the firm’s founder and chairman.

The new venture will see the plantation of 200,000 jatropha trees as the first stage in a seven year plan to cultivate 100 million trees grown on land owned in Sao Paulo.The first saplings will be planted in the spring of next year.

At its July annual general meeting Viridas said it had been approached by a number of potential investors and was looking at the project with “ever-increasing confidence”.

Mr Wootliff said in his statement today that the group’s strategy was to proceed with its Brazil project, while at the same time continuing to rationalise its traditional underwear businesses in the UK and Germany.

“I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our employees, whose hard work and dedication is so important to the continued progress of the group,” he said.

Its diversification into biofuels was to be spearheaded by former McKinsey & Co partner Fernando Cesar Lunardini.

However, it appears that Mr Lunardini left the company a few days ago.

Jatropha is being heralded as the next generation of fuel stock, not only for its high oil yield – second only to palm oil – but because it takes little out of the land, and can be used for secondary businesses such as making soap.

The tree grows throughout South East Asia, Africa, and Brazil, but because its seeds are highly poisonous it has been largely ignored by indigenous peoples.

Campaigners against the cultivation of other fuel feedstock such as palm oil and soya claim that jatropha is the answer to all ethical dilemmas surrounding deforestation and land clearance.

Not only can it be grown in mixed plantations, requires few nutrients and little water, and can be processed cheaply making it an ideal domestic fuel.

However, trees take from three to four years to mature and although a number of biodiesel firms are trialling the crop such as D1 oils in Middlesbrough, it hasn’t yet been commercially cultivated.