Cap-xx Regulatory News (CPX)

Business Review

About CAP-XX Limited

CAP-XX Limited is a world leader in the design and manufacture of revolutionary thin-form supercapacitors predominately for use in small electronic devices and automotive applications. Supercapacitors can considerably extend battery run-times and provide power-hungry functions that are not possible with current battery technology or ambient energy harvesters.

CAP-XX supercapacitors have a compact, prismatic design and can store higher volumes of energy and output higher power levels than competing supercapacitor products. These attributes are critical for current and future generation electronic devices, such as mobile phones offering high quality flash photography and audio playback. Other applications include industrial handheld computers and point of sale systems (POS), cache protection in solid state drives (SSD), mobile phone accessories, LED flash and alkaline battery support in digital cameras, energy storage and peak power support for energy harvesting systems, battery-free e-Book readers, portable drug delivery systems, wireless sensor networks, uninterrupted power supplies, toll tags and location tracking devices. Large scale market opportunities also include Stop-Start systems in cars, battery support units for large vehicles and hybrid electric vehicles. Longer term, as the market for fuel cell systems develops, supercapacitors will also be used to support modulated output for fuel cell powered vehicles.

In 2011-2012, CAP-XX continued to supply supercapacitors to a number of blue chip consumer electronics companies for use in these current generation application but is also now focussed on the larger opportunities represented by the emerging market opportunities mentioned - both directly and via licensee partnerships such as that already in place with, Murata Manufacturing of Japan. In addition, CAP-XX is actively seeking licensing or joint venture opportunities for surface mount and large cell supercapacitors for automotive applications to market.

CAP-XX is incorporated in Australia and has its headquarters, research and development and electrode manufacturing facilities in Sydney, , where 22 staff are employed. These facilities are ISO 9001-2008 certified and all products are UL registered and RoHS, REACH, WEEE and Conflict Materials compliant.. Larger manufacturing facilities, which are also ISO9001-2008 certified, are operated in Malaysia by Polar Twin Advance Sdn Bhd and Nationgate Technologies Sdn Bhd under manufacturing agreements with CAP-XX.

Historical Milestones

In 1994, a company associated with Anthony Kongats, now Chief Executive Officer of CAP-XX Limited, entered into an agreement with CSIRO (the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) to research and commercialise supercapacitor technology that had resulted from CSIRO research.

CAP-XX Limited (formerly known as Energy Storage Systems Pty Limited) was established in 1997 by Anthony Kongats as the vehicle to hold the intellectual property resulting from the partnership with CSIRO. CAP-XX received research and development grants from the Australian Government and was backed by some of the world's leading technology investors, including ABN Amro, Acer, Innovation Capital, Intel, Technology Venture Partners and Walden.

In 1999, the Company built a pilot production plant in Lane Cove, Sydney, Australia, and progressively improved production capacity. It began shipping supercapacitor products to customers in 2003. Customers supplied to date include Sony, Sony Ericsson, IP Wireless, Option, Sierra Wireless and Flextronics. Product shipped to Motorola, Intermec and Hand Held Products has been incorporated in field-critical devices such as those used by leading parcel delivery companies like FedEx and UPS.

In late 2004, the Company entered into a manufacturing agreement with Polar Twin Advance Sdn Bhd ("PTA") of Malaysia to provide high volume manufacturing services. The production flow process developed in Sydney was replicated successfully in Malaysia.

CAP-XX was named a 2005 Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum for developing and applying innovative and transformational technology.

In February 2006, the CAP-XX technology was recognised by Frost & Sullivan's 2005 Technology Innovation of the Year Award as a 'breakthrough nanotechnology process for producing supercapacitors to meet the pulse-power requirements of portable devices'. This Award recognises research expected to make significant contributions to the electronics industry.

CAP-XX has received numerous other international awards for its products and electronic circuit designs including EDN's Top Overall Power Product for 2009 and being voted 3rd overall in Electronic Design's Top 101 Components for 2009.

On 20 April 2006, CAP-XX Limited was listed on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange in conjunction with a placement of 18,433,333 shares at 93 pence per share, which raised gross proceeds of AUD$41million (£17.1 million) and increased the total shareholding to 48,565,893 shares and market capitalisation (at 93 pence per share) to about AUD$108 million (£45.2 million). Shareholding rose to 49,112,791 by 30 June 2008 as various Employee Shareholder Option Plan participants exercised their options. On 25 June 2009, a secondary capital raising was completed with 12,940,000 shares being placed at 12.5 pence per share. On 25 March 2011, a capital raising was completed with 5,906,493 shares being placed at 33 pence per share. On 6th June 2011, a capital raising was completed with 9,072,813 shares being placed at 16 pence per share. On 15th March 2012, a capital raising was completed with 9,245,333 shares being placed at 30 pence per share. Total shares outstanding as at June 2012 was 86,277,430 shares.

In May 2008, CAP-XX entered into a technology license agreement with Murata Manufacturing Corporation (Murata) of Japan to jointly develop and supply high performance supercapacitors for mobile handsets and other power hungry, space constrained portable applications. Murata is recognised as one of the world's leading manufacturing companies for electric components and is an existing supplier to all of the top mobile handset market companies. CAP-XX and Murata continue to work together to scale supercapacitor production to meet the anticipated demand of the global handset market. Volume mass production and sales from this partnership commenced in the first half of 2011.

 In October 2008, the companies signed a Supply Agreement which provides CAP-XX with a proportion of the Murata manufactured product for re-sale to CAP-XX's existing and new customers under the CAP-XX name. While product sales to date from this agreement have been modest through to June 2012, CAP-XX believes that demand and sales will grow strongly in the near future.

In November 2008, both companies signed a Feasibility Study Agreement for the first stage of a proposed Collaborative R&D program which concluded with the successful demonstration of a working surface mountable supercapacitor in the first half of 2009. On the 5 March 2010, CAP-XX and Murata signed a R&D Agreement which was an extension of the collaboration in developing supercapacitors with Murata. The contract covered surface mounted devices (SMD's) which will enable manufacturers to mount supercapacitors directly onto printed circuit boards using reflow solder techniques. These supercapacitors are particularly suitable for high volume applications. This project was successfully concluded in June 2011. At present, CAP-XX and Murata have deferred the associated license negotiations, as it is the Company's understanding that Murata is focusing its efforts on increasing sales of the supercapacitor products already in production. CAP-XX is in initial negotiations with several other manufacturers regarding licensing the surface mount technology.

On 30 July 2009, CAP-XX signed a contract manufacturing agreement with Nationgate Technologies of Penang, Malaysia. Under the terms of the agreement, Nationgate acquired and transferred to Penang, the supercapacitor assembly manufacturing plant, from CAP-XX's Lane Cove facility. Following the re-commissioning of the plant at its Penang facility, Nationgate began producing saleable supercapacitors in Q1 2010. Since 2010, Nationgate, with the assistance of CAP-XX, has successfully commissioned a second assembly line at their Penang site which doubles the available capacity. Polar Twin Advance, also in Penang, continues as a contract manufacturer, for CAP-XX.

Review of Operations and Activities

CAP-XX, has manufactured and sold more than 8 million supercapacitors modules (16 million cells) since launching its first supercapacitor products in 2003 Since 2008 CAP-XX has established a new revenue stream with the commencement of license fees and other related payments including royalties from Murata. Although the Murata sales to date are lower than expected, Murata's investment in product line extensions and increased manufacturing capacity support the Board's expectations of accelerated sales growth over the coming years.

Total sales revenue for the 12 months to 30 June 2012, decreased by AUD$0.3 million to AUD$3.5 million compared to AUD$3.8 million in 2011. This decrease is due to the final Murata instalment from the R&D feasibility program being received in the 2011 financial year (AUD$0.7 million). Pleasingly, product sales increased by more than 10% from AUD$3.1m to AUD$3.5m with unit sales increasing by 14% to1.0 million dual cell devices. Average selling price in US dollars increased 1%. The strengthening AUD negatively impacted the year on year revenue by 5%. The operating result for the twelve months to 30 June 2012, was a loss of AUD$2.9 million (2011: loss of AUD$3.3 million). Operational improvements at both Penang and Lane Cove over the past twelve months were able to cover the cessation in service revenue from the Murata R&D program. As in previous years, the 2012 result does include an accrued tax rebate from the Australian Taxation Office related to eligible Research & Development expenditure.

Business Environment

Space constrained and portable electronic devices provide the greatest opportunities for CAP-XX's current products. Driven by customer requests, manufacturers are constantly adding to the functions and applications available on these devices and striving to reduce their size, a combination which increases the demands on, and requirements for, high performance power management solutions with supercapacitors at their core.

Automotive applications such as Stop-Start systems in conventional engines, hybrid electric vehicles and full electric vehicles offer extremely attractive and rapidly growing new opportunities for CAP-XX products. Numerous automotive OEM's and battery manufacturers are currently evaluating CAP-XX's products and the feedback has been pleasing. Due to the unforseen demand, additional equipment to assist with the production of large supercapacitor samples for automotive and other markets has been purchased and is expected to be commissioned in the first half of the current financial year.

CAP-XX technology provides a competitive advantage for its products over those of most other supercapacitor manufacturers, such as AVX, Maxwell Technologies and NEC/Tokin Corporation. Other manufacturers have not been able to match the CAP-XX parts in terms of thinness, energy density and power density. Many other companies manufacture higher-capacity, large package supercapacitors and focus on applications where the CAP-XX combination of thinness, energy density and power density is not required. In the future, CAP-XX's surface mount capability will offer another very significant point of difference with the competition.

 Opportunities

Video cameras, digital cameras and mobile phones remain a very large and attractive market for CAP-XX and its partners as evidenced by Sony launching a range of video cameras using supercapacitors supplied by CAP-XX's licensee, Murata. Royalties received by CAP-XX from Murata were AUD$47K for the 2011/12 financial year with the expectation that royalty income will grow significantly as Murata accelerates its sales efforts.

During the year the number of enquiries for automotive solutions from CAP-XX has increased dramatically. CAP-XX is continuing to refine its current product offering and is concentrating on a number of automotive opportunities including Stop-Start systems and hybrid electric vehicles.

Other applications include SSDs, energy harvesting, portable drug delivery systems, e-Book readers, wireless sensor networks, uninterrupted power supplies, RFID and toll tags, building management systems and location tracking devices.

An additional benefit of the Murata manufacturing agreement is that it has validated the CAP-XX supercapacitor as a mainstream consumer electronics technology and increased exposure to markets and customers that were previously not targeted due to the Company's limited resources. Association with Murata is helping gain recognition for and acceptance of the abilities of CAP-XX supercapacitors to support high-power functions.

Murata will not be able to meet the product type or size requirements of all markets. Murata will refer non-core customers to CAP-XX and CAP-XX will supply these markets directly using products made by its contract manufacturers.

Strategies for Growth

The Company continues to have discussions aimed at securing business with a number of global original equipment manufacturers active in consumer commercial and clean-tech electronics. We are strengthening our relationships with these organisations and conduct regular engineering meetings with their design teams. We are unable to comment on specific clients, but are pleased with overall progress, and confident that the available market for supercapacitors is increasing as manufacturers become familiar with the technology.

As mentioned in the past, CAP-XX is continuing to expand its market coverage through the appointment of qualified distributors. Over the past 12 months, new value-added distributors have been appointed in Japan, Africa and India whilst sample sales capabilities have been added through the inclusion of selected CAP-XX products in the element14 and RS Components catalogues and the Tecate and McCoy websites. Sales growth from this distributor network is encouraging and distributors experience in selling our product continues to improve. It is expected that CAP-XX will appoint further distributors over the next twelve months.

The Company will explore additional opportunities to increase the product offering both through the current distributors and direct to customers. These offerings may take the form of complementary energy storage devices and modules.

Separately, the Company is exploring opportunities in various new markets with potential licensees or joint venture partners to leverage its strong intellectual property and engineering expertise. Given the increasing interest in CAP-XX technology and application expertise, the Company believes the automotive market may offer significant new opportunities for short term growth.

Research and Development

CAP-XX has a research facility at its headquarters in Lane Cove, Australia where a research and development team comprised of 11 engineers and scientists, is continuing development work to maintain CAP-XX's lead position in the engineering of electrode, separator and electrolyte material in supercapacitor devices. We also have a close association with leading research institutions whilst our Scientific Advisory Board provides clear direction on the commercially relevant technologies for our ongoing R&D programme.

The market in which the Company operates is competitive and is characterised by rapid technological change. CAP-XX has a strong competitive position in all its target markets with its capability to produce supercapacitors with a high energy density and power density in a small conveniently sized flat package. CAP-XX devices are also lightweight, work over a broad temperature range and have an operating lifetime measured in years.

The Company's success depends on its ability to protect and prevent any infringements of its intellectual property. To protect this important asset the Company has considerable intellectual property embodied in patents covering the design, manufacture and use of its high performance supercapacitors. The CAP-XX patent portfolio currently consists of 19 patent families with 37 granted national patents (14 USA, 7 US continuations, 13 in Europe, 1 in Japan and 1 in China) with an additional 33 applications pending in various jurisdictions,. The patents cover supercapacitive devices, components for supercapacitors, techniques for manufacturing devices and applications of the devices in electronic circuits.

Outlook

CAP-XX continues to pursue other business opportunities in addition to mobile handset manufacturers and good progress has been made especially in a number of non- traditional markets. Sales volumes continue to increase and on a year on year basis were up 14%. Sales volumes in FY13 are also up when compared to the same period from the previous year.

Separately CAP-XX is in the process of identifying potential partners who have the necessary manufacturing experience and scale to successfully partner with CAP-XX in the automotive market and on surface mount supercapacitors.

The major short term focus for CAP-XX will be to complete licensing for its automotive technology; ensuring the increase in sales enquiries and associated demand is followed up and leads to a strong increase in sales volumes from current and emerging markets; distributors are in place to support the increase in world-wide demand for supercapacitor technology; assisting Murata where necessary in discussions with mobile phone manufacturers; and ensuring that the new business opportunities identified above are aggressively pursued.