The AIM-quoted company, which has shelved plans to move to the Full List, cut its deficit 87 per cent in the year to June from a previous £232 million on turnover down 27 per cent to £34 million and will pay a final dividend of 3.85p a share, for a full-year payout increase of 22 per cent to 5.5p a share.

Trading Emissions, chaired by former insurance luminary Neil Eckert, invests in certified emission reductions (CERs) and in related financial instruments traded on the European Climate Exchange as well as renewable energy projects around the world. The company ended June with net assets per share down nearly 2.5 per cent at 146.77p, a carbon portfolio down 4.5 per cent to 58.41p a share and net cash down 35 per cent to £111.4 million or 43.29p a share.

Last month, shareholders ratified a new investment policy, which should see EEA Fund Management, Trading Emissions’ investment adviser, ‘optimise the cash value of the company’s assets through a controlled realisation programme’ between now and the end of 2012. It is hoped this would restore to the company the present 37 per cent discount of its shares at 91.5p, down from 2005’s £1 float price, to current net asset value and enable it to return cash to shareholders.

This might not suggest great medium-term optimism for the sector. However, Trading Emissions argues its existing portfolio of private equity holdings does present opportunities for profitable future investment by the company and potential co-investors, with its own likely share in such funding ‘not exceeding £45 million’.