3 Feb 2015 07:00
3 February 2015
Applied Graphene Materials plc
("Applied Graphene Materials", "the Group" or "the Company")
Post-close trading update
Applied Graphene Materials plc, the producer of specialty graphene materials, is pleased to provide the following update ahead of the announcement of its interim results for the period ended 31 January 2015.
The overall trading performance of the Group for the period has been in line with the Directors' expectations with net cash of approximately £6.6 million at the period end. Operational priorities have been customer sampling, developing customer relationships, performance data generation and ongoing enhancements to the manufacturing and dispersion processes. The Board is pleased with the progress achieved in these areas and in particular the pace of progress since the announcement of the full year results.
Customer relationships and sampling
As previously reported, November 2014 was a record month for Applied Graphene Materials for the number of samples provided to customers. Approximately 90% of our ongoing engagements are with the Group's three core target markets of advanced composites, coatings and functional fluids, encompassing global operators in these markets. We have taken encouragement from early performance test data.
Investments in our Senior Management team
The Group recently announced two new senior management appointments, being Nigel Blatherwick as Commercial Director and Dr Adrian Potts as Vice President Business Development for North America. Both have extensive experience of business development in the specialty materials sector and will be invaluable to the Group as it extends its commercial partnerships and capitalises on its international profile. Nigel will lead the Group's commercial activities and Adrian, who is based in Oklahoma, will spearhead growth into the North American markets where considerable interest is anticipated.
Manufacturing and dispersion processes
During the period, the Group commenced preliminary work on the front end engineering design of a larger scale mk4 production asset and this design work will continue in the second half of the financial year. This investment is in addition to that already made in the Group's in-house engineering expertise which to date has been focused on developing our existing proprietary production equipment. Whilst the cost of this design work is modest in the context of the likely overall cost of the construction of a larger production asset, this investment signifies the Group's intention to seek to put in place capacity in advance of anticipated growth in demand to secure the Group's long term position in this exciting market opportunity.
During the period, the Group has gradually increased the run rates of its production assets as part of plans to evidence the consistency and quality of production at higher volumes. This activity will also continue in the second half of the financial year as ongoing enhancements continue to be made to the Group's manufacturing and dispersion processes.
Outlook
The effects of these investments in customer relationships and front end engineering design work is that some costs will be brought forwards into the second half of the current financial year and into 2016 in order to support the long term growth of the Group.
Our priorities for second half of the year include:
· Scaling production through demonstrating running at higher production rates;
· Sampling customers; and
· Supporting in depth, high quality customer relationships.
The Board remains confident that Applied Graphene Materials is well placed to play a leading role in meeting the growing global appetite for graphene.
Interim results
Applied Graphene Materials' interim results for the period ended 31 January 2015 are expected to be announced on Wednesday 25 March 2015.
Ends
For further information, please contact:
Applied Graphene Materials +44 (0) 1642 438 214
Jon Mabbitt, Chief Executive Officer
Oliver Lightowlers, Chief Financial Officer
N+1 Singer +44 (0) 207 496 3000
Shaun Dobson / Richard Lindley
Hudson Sandler +44 (0) 207 796 4133
Charlie Jack / Emily Dillon
Notes to Editors
Applied Graphene Materials was founded by Professor Karl Coleman in 2010 with its operations and processes based on technology that he initially developed at Durham University. The Group was admitted to AIM in November 2013, raising £11 million, and is based at the Wilton Site on Teesside.
The Group has developed a proprietary bottom-up process for the production of high purity graphene nanoplatelets and owns the intellectual property and know-how behind this process. Applied Graphene Materials' process is based on sustainable, readily available raw materials and therefore does not rely on the supply of graphite, unlike a number of other graphene production techniques. It is capable of producing high purity graphene using a continuous process. Applied Graphene Materials provides dispersion and product integration expertise to deliver solutions for a wide range of applications.