STIJN BIJNENS

[BIZ: Hasselt, February 7]
Half of the profit of LRM, the Limburg (B) Development Company must come this year from venture capital and property management. This year the first attempt will be made to source gas in Limburg, according to Stijn Bijnens in his first interview as the permanent director of LRM in the magazine Trends. This highly rated ‘Limburg Manager of the Year’ in 1999 took over LRM from Gerard Buteneers on October 25, 2007 and now this has become a permanent position.

LRM has ambitious plans: it’s looking at drilling for gas in the Kempen area after a study that the Flemish Institute for Technological Research (Vito) made which showed that there were 58 billion cubic meters of methane, of which seven million cubic meters could be drilled for and used. But minewater is also on the cards, as it is in Netherlands Limburg in the Heerlen area. LRM also expects to be able to sell 143 hectares to Ford.

On the venture capital front, the company wants to invest EUR 20m a year; this is double what it has been in the past. The focal areas are IT, biomedical, cleantech and life science projects. But also sectors in which they’re not yet active, according to Mr Bijnens.
http://www.trends.be/