Occasionally a new entrant to London’s equity markets is not only of interest from the usual investment angle, but can also offer a possible glimpse into our potential future - the rash of biotechnology companies towards the end of the 1990's provide a case in point. This week saw the admission - or rather re-admission - of Biofutures International PLC to London’s Alternative Investment Market (Aim). This was subsequent to a £32.5m fundraising, a reverse acquisition of a Malaysian speciality chemicals group (Platinum Nanochem), and a name change to Graphene NanoChem (GRPH).
As the new name suggests, Graphene NanoChem - in addition to an existing core speciality chemicals business - employs proprietary graphene production technology. It holds intellectual property for a process known as Catalyx - a method that extracts graphene from biogases such as methane, instead of more expensive technologies that derive the material from graphite. Part of the attraction of the Graphene NanoChem business model is that it utilises low-cost palm oil waste and processing residues as feedstock for its speciality chemicals, biofuels and advanced materials businesses. Graphene NanoChem will initially use its proprietary technologies to produce graphene-enriched biodegradable drilling fluids for the shale gas industry. The group already boasts a number of high-profile customers and partners in the oil & gas industry, including Shell and Chevron.
According to Panmure Gordon, "Investors have had few opportunities to gain exposure" to graphene in the three-years since Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov from the University of Manchester received a Nobel Prize for isolating the substance. Graphene, a man-made "wonder material", is often described as "atomic chicken-wire2" it's made up of an atom-thin hexagonal mesh of carbon, which is incredibly light, strong and has several seemingly magical qualities, including super-conductivity at normal room temperatures - most existing super-conducting materials have to operate at extreme sub-zero conditions in the region of -270 C.
