28th Feb 2011 07:00
28 February 2011
Pursuit Dynamics PLC (AIM: PDX)
("PDX" or the "Company')
AGM Statement
PDX will be holding its Annual General Meeting today at 12:00 a.m. (noon). In his address to shareholders, Chairman, Mr. Andrew Quinn will provide the following update:
Introduction
"Since our last AGM, PDX has had a busy year and has made tremendous progress on a wide range of fronts. The management reorganisation that we highlighted last year has led to the appointment of new leaders for our Biofuels and Brewing, Food and Beverages businesses, each of whom are leaders in their field. Each Line of Business ("LOB") has established an impressive pipeline of target contracts that are now at various stages of commercial development.
We have also broadened significantly our coverage of patent protection as our business opportunities have been expanded. We have also continued to recruit high quality scientists, project managers and business development professionals to augment our current capability.
A key joint venture has been established with National Nuclear Laboratory Ltd to exploit our de-contamination capability in the civil nuclear industry. New relationships have been established with major partners, such as Proctor and Gamble and Kärcher Futuretech GmbH ("Kärcher").
In May 2010 we successfully raised additional funds for the business under the leadership of our CEO, Roel Pieper, which put us on a sound financial footing.
We have appointed a new CFO, Richard Webster, to strengthen our management team, and have reviewed our corporate structure to improve its tax-efficiency.
Biofuels
In October last year a milestone decision was made by US Government to increase the amount of ethanol mixed with gasoline (the "blendwall") by 50%. This change has created a significant opportunity for PDX in that our technology allows our customers to increase output volumes from existing production assets at very modest cost and with little or no disruption. Excellent progress has been made in a number of well-executed installations at plants, proving we now have the skills to deliver our technology on our clients' sites, no matter how geographically remote. At the Pacific Ethanol Inc. plant in Boardman, Oregon, we are in the final legal stages of agreeing the revenue contract following successful implementation, securing our first biofuels revenue in Q1 of this calendar year. We have completed the installation of a larger system at the MABE plant in Madrid, Nebraska which is currently commencing operational validation and base-lining. The Marquis Energy plant near Hennepin, Illinois, will complete installation in early March and commence operational validation immediately thereafter. There has been an inevitable learning process in this business and we are already seeing an acceleration in the time to complete on-site installation. A further four plants have entered agreements to install the ERS (Ethanol Reactor System), which will be installed this financial year. Altogether the current combined capacity of these seven plants is 480 million gallons per year.
Brewing, Food and Beverages
Major progress has been made in the Brewing sector. In September we announced an agreement with Oettinger Brauerei GmbH, one of the major food and beverage companies in Germany, which is renowned as an efficient low-cost producer, to install a new PDX brewing system at one of its many plants. We have signed a small deal with a brewer in the USA which aims to be one of the most eco-friendly brewers in the USA, giving us, for the first time, a reference site in the important US market. Negotiations are in place with two of the world's four largest brewers, at one of which, MillerCoors, we now have a pilot project agreed. In Germany we have agreed to trials with a further two of the five largest German brewers. We also secured the prestigious Reinheitsgebot accreditation proving our technology's compliance with the very strict German beer purity regulations. These are a benchmark for many other countries.
In the food sector we have re-invigorated our sales capability, and now are building up a very satisfactory pipeline focussed on clients with European and US operations, for both retro fit and new plant installations.
Industrial Licensing
Our relationship with Tyco has been established for some time, and, following receipt of Factory Mutual approvals and a the launch of its Aquasonic fire suppression product range last year, we see a growing pipeline of orders and anticipate the receipt of modest revenues this financial year, despite the difficult capital goods market conditions in which Tyco is operating.
On November 5th, 2010 PDX announced a Joint Development Agreement ("JDA") with P&G that enables P&G to develop specific applications using the PDX reactor technology in a wide range of its production processes. The JDA is the culmination of trials that commenced in the spring of 2010. The new agreement will enable P&G's technical centres to embed the PDX technology inside their global facilities. This will enable them to assess the potential cost and energy savings of using PDX's technology in its manufacturing processes.
Kärcher and PDX announced in April a partnership agreement to form a 50/50 joint venture to jointly develop, produce and market products in the Public Health and Decontamination sector. As a result, PDX and Kärcher have started joint research and development across five product lines and expect to deliver the first joint products in late summer this year.
Water
The new Water LOB was established in December 2010 in response to the interest in the potential of the PDX technology in a variety of applications, including waste water treatment, desalination and cleaning marine shipping ballast water. Encouraging trials at a waste water treatment plant in Albertville, Alabama, USA, during 2010 led us to believe that there is a very significant opportunity for PDX to apply its core technology in this major sector on a global basis.
Public Health and Decontamination
In February 2011 we announced the creation of a NDX Solutions Ltd ("NDX"), in which PDX has a 60% stake, a joint venture with National Nuclear Laboratories Ltd, to develop, produce and market products for the global nuclear market. Revenues from the joint venture commenced in the first quarter of the current of calendar year and are expected to build quarter over quarter as technology applications are rolled out.
Conclusion
PDX has demonstrated considerable progress over the past year, under the capable leadership of our CEO Roel Pieper. He has created a high performing team capable of delivering world class value. 2011 is a pivotal year for the Company as we start to see new revenue streams coming on line. Much speculation has been made about the ability of the business to deliver to customer expectations, but the Company is very confident that the technology, the team and the strategy are in place that can deliver genuinely valuable solutions to PDX's clients and strong returns for shareholders."
- Ends -
For Further Information, please contact:
PDX | |
Roel Pieper, CEO | Tel: +44 (0)1480 422050 |
Richard Webster, CFO | |
Financial Dynamics | |
Ben Foster Marc Cohen | Tel: +44 (0) 20 7831 3113
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Cenkos Securities | |
Ian Soanes Max Hartley | Tel: +44 (0)20 7397 8924 |
Mirabaud Securities | |
Rory Scott | Tel: +44 (0) 20 7878 3360 |
Notes to Editors
About PDX
- PDX (AIM: PDX) owns and commercialises the PDX Atomiser and Reactor technologies that enable significant reductions in energy usage, process acceleration and result enhancement for a wide range of industrial processes and applications.
- The PDX business model is currently organised into five Lines of Business - Biofuels; Brewing, Food and Beverages; Public Health and Decontamination; Industrial Licensing; Water.
- PDX is headquartered in Huntingdon (UK) with an office in London (UK), Schaffhausen (Switzerland) and Connecticut (USA).
- Further information is available at the Company's website: www.pdx.biz
- Publication quality photographs are available from FD.
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