LONDON (Alliance News) - Haydale Graphene Industries PLC Monday said it has struck a deal to buy advanced composite polymers company EPL for a total of GBP1.4 million, and has agreed a new GBP500,000 facility with Silicon Valley Bank to help fund the acquisition.
In a statement, Haydale said EPL is a recognised composite research and development and testing house, based in Loughborough with 17 scientists and technicians. Its customers include National Grid, SSE PLC, Eirgrid, Chevron, Anglian Water, Severn Trent Water, Yorkshire Water and 3M. EPL made revenue of GBP815,000 and pretax profit of GBP26,000 in the year to end-March.
Haydale said it will pay GBP400,000 in cash, GBP187,691 in director loans, and up to GBP792,500 in either cash or shares based on earnings targets to June 30, 2016.
Its new loan facility with Silicon Valley Bank has a three-year term, and it expects to fund repayments through cash earned by EPL.
"The facility thereby preserves the group's existing cash resources to fund its other development and growth programmes," it said.
Haydale said recent tests conducted by EPL, in collaboration with Haydale, using a standard epoxy resin mixed with Haydale functionalised Graphene Nano Platelets showed a more than 200% improvement in ultimate tensile strength, a measure of material toughness, using just 2% loading of
the platelets.
"Acquisition is in line with Haydale's strategy of forming partnerships with companies who already have market presence in its target sectors. EPL's access to the composites market is intended to enhance Haydale's sales potential in this area. Haydale and EPL are already collaborating on a number of projects," the company said.
"The acquisition is a major step in capitalising on Haydale's proprietary technology which enables it to incorporate graphene and other nano enhancing fillers into composites; a global and growing industry where market research firm IDTechEx forecast the Graphene element alone to be worth approximately USD80 million by 2018," it added.
By Steve McGrath; stevemcgrath@alliancenews.com; @stevemcgrath1
Copyright 2014 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.