Students of the collective psyche must have had a field day during the pandemic. Once Covid-19 started to dominate public discourse, it became clear that bacillophobia had started to spread more rapidly than the virus itself. And that fear extended beyond simply avoiding contact with anyone unlucky enough to have been infected. Instead, those in dread of the virus started stocking up on surface disinfectants and antimicrobial wet-wipes as if their lives depended on it.
Of course, it was great news for the likes of Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG) and Reckitt Benckiser (RKT), but it is difficult to know whether it was just a knee-jerk reaction to sensational press coverage, or if it heralded a permanent change in consumer preferences – time will tell.
If, indeed, we have all become warier over the prospect of coming into contact with surfaces tainted by the virus, the commercial opportunity will not be confined to the producers of surface disinfectants. Companies engaged in materials science could also profit from lingering fears over the pandemic.
In a barren year for initial public offerings, textile materials technology group HeiQ (LSE: HEIQ) was admitted to trading on the London Stock Exchange at the beginning of December following an oversubscribed placing and subscription.
HeiQ is a spin-off of ETH Zurich, a public research university in Switzerland. Its core activities centre on joint research and development projects for performance textiles with dozens of consumer brands such as GAP, Speedo, The North Face and Zara, though the breadth of its product offering continues to widen.
Many of these materials have been jointly developed with the aim of ensuring certain thermal and/or protective qualities, but the group’s textiles technology is also being put to work in specialist areas. The Oilguard product, for example, is an oil-absorbing, water-repelling, non-woven fabric for oil relief efforts, including oil spills and off-shore protection.
And in view of the pandemic, much is being made of possibly its most successful innovation: HeiQ Viroblock. The antimicrobial technology, first developed during the Ebola crisis in 2013, is added to fabric during the final stage of the manufacturing process, and has shown to be 99.99 per cent effective against SARS-Cov-2. It may be that some people will continue to fret about the remaining 0.01 per cent, but it is not difficult to appreciate the potential for widespread commercial applications beyond the rag trade and soft furnishing market.
Indeed, in March, the Viroblock technology platform was adopted for use in wall paint, following a collaboration with Berger Paints. And later that month, HeiQ signed a contract granting ICP Industrial Inc exclusive world rights for the technology for use in graphic art coatings for printing processes including food, beverage and pharma packaging.
Management at HeiQ believe the business, though already established, has strong growth characteristics given the c. $25bn (£18bn) addressable market in antimicrobial fabrics and textile chemicals. But it is already performing creditably as a public company, having boosted revenues by 80 per cent in 2020, while registering a six-fold increase in net earnings. For now, surplus funds are being ploughed back into the business, further underlining management’s determination to secure increased market share.
