Haydale Graphene Industries PLC Chief Executive Officer Ray Gibbs caught up with DirectorsTalk for an exclusive interview to discuss their busy acquisition programme, functional inks, an increase in sales and the progress of the Everpower, Huntsman and Flowtite acquisitions
Q1: Haydale Graphene has had a busy acquisition programme just recently, is this going to continue going forward?
A1: We will not stop looking for things that make value-added acquisitions for us. At the moment, we’re bedding down what we’ve got, we’re very happy with the acquisitions we’ve made in the first half-year of our financial year, both are working very well, both are actually performing now with visibility on sales and we have a track record at the moment of making successes of these. So, if there’s something that’s going forward that makes it work for us from a value-added basis of course we will.
Q2: Talking about something that works for you, functional inks, can you provide us an example of functional inks?
A2: Ok, yes, we have a collaboration in Taiwan, they’ve used their resin binder system and our powders and our processing to create a very conductive ink and paste which is used to screen print onto a substrate to create a bio-medical sensor, which is being approved by the Food and Drug Administration in America. We then sell the ink to a printer and the printer prints that bio-medical sensor for an end customer like Johnson and Johnson and the others and they sell that in so it’s been a big long gestation process to get that approval and now it’s on place we can see there’s some visibility on sales which of course will be repeat, repeat, repeat. So, that’s a one-stop shop bio-medical sensor for the diagnostic of, for example, diabetes.
Q3: Now, Haydale Graphene recently announced a proposed collaboration with Everpower, Ray can you tell us who they are and what the terms of their agreement was?
A3: Everpower is a New York based international operation looking for the ability to put services and products into China which is something that, of course, we’ve not been anywhere near until we’re ready. They are mindful of wanting to take our products and processes and put that into China to try and grow it with a view to putting a lot of stuff in country in their market so the agreement is such that we have taken some initial upfront monies from them and we’re waiting for now £2.9 million which is due in by the end of March. For that, we then enter into an exclusivity for our products to go into the China hinterland for which, of course, there will be recompense as we go so that’s the agreement and that contract will not happen until such time as the investment, which is a 9.9% investment of our company at 1.70 a share happens.
Q4: I see that sales are up 9% in the period, do you expect this growth to continue?
A4: The sales are up because approximately £750,000 of that is the start of the sales out of America, out of the silicon carbide business, ACM, that we bought in October. So yes, I do expect the sales to improve and continue to go because of course ACM is a business that’s generating sales and has got revenues already there and of course, we do have some revenues in the United Kingdom too. So, yes, I am looking for growth.
Q5: So finally, just jumping back to some of the collaborations that Haydale Graphene have, Huntsman and Flowtite, how are they progressing?
A5: They’re progressing well, Huntsman has been slower than we were initially led to believe by Huntsman themselves, they are mindful of making sure that what we do and we’ve done some really very interesting work with them. They’re focussed on thermal conductivity of their industrial araldite resin and the pre-impregnated resin that goes into the marketplace and that is looking like they’re now going to get to beta testing with customers going forward and will take between 3-6 months to start that process, pre-preg is something that they said will take a bit longer, probably early doors next calendar year.
Flowtite, that business had its eyes taken off the ball a little bit, remember they’re the water pipe and sewerage pipe company, they’re merging with a company called HOBAS which gives us another opportunity, that’s in the water pipes. Haydale Graphene are on-site with their production facility to put our material into to enhance their pipes under the agreement in April, once that’s done the self-certification testing, and they will want to use our materials to put into their pipes within the next 6 months, that’s the plan.
