Turley family buys out bioethanol joint venture partner

The Turley family have bought out their 50% partner in Ethanol Europe Renewables — one of the continent's biggest producers of bioethanol.

The company was a joint venture between the Turleys and Fagen, an American developer of energy plants.

According to The Sunday Times, accounts show that the Turley family, who made more than €100m from the sale of the online car rental company CarTrawler, took full control of the bioethanol producer last year for an undisclosed sum.

Ethanol Europe Renewables is the owner of Hungarian ethanol and animal feed producer Pannonia Ethanol. In 2014, the entire company generated revenues of €170m (£125m) and booked an operating loss of €10m (£7m).

The newspaper quoted directors Greg and Mark Turley as saying previously that the company planned to expand the Pannonia Ethanol plant and make it the largest in Europe. Currently, it uses over 1m tonnes of corn annually to produce about 450m litres of ethanol.