Sep 15 2004
Cyclics Europe GmbH, a wholly owned subsidiary of Cyclics Corporation (USA) announced the completion of the €55.9 million ($68 million) limited recourse financing package with KfW IPEX-Bank to finance construction of a CBT® resin plant in Schwarzheide, Germany and working capital. The package is made up of private equity investments, grants and subsidies from the State of Brandenburg and German Federal government, and loans and lines of credit from KfW IPEX-Bank. KfW IPEX-Bank is the sole lender on the project. Funding for the design and construction thus far was supported with private investment in order to accelerate the commercialization of CBT resin. CBT resin is finding applications in the automotive, construction, wind power, fuel storage tanks and large castings. The completed plant will employ more than 70 people.
Cyclics plans to complete the plant, its first commercial production plant for high performance CBT resins, by the end of 2004. The plant is located on a site in Schwarzheide in the State of Brandenburg in Germany. The plant will have an initial annual capacity of 2500 metric tonnes (5.5 million pounds). Cyclics has orders for a significant portion of its first year of production and plans are in place to stretch the plant capacity to over 5000 metric tonnes (10 million pounds) in 2006 to accommodate new applications currently in development.
“The KfW IPEX-Bank took the time to understand the demand for our products and helped us put together a package to meet our financial goals,” said Roman Eder, General Manager for Cyclics Europe GmbH, “When your company is growing as fast as we are, you need a strong financial partner to respond to the demand.”
“Achieving this level of support from government entities, bankers and our investors highlights the confidence they all have in the Cyclics team and our innovative products,” added Ted Eveleth, President and CEO of Cyclics Corporation.
“The first Cyclics plant is a great opportunity to be in on the ground floor of an exciting technology,” remarked Holger Apel, Senior Vice President Basic Industries of KfW IPEX-Bank. “We are pleased to be associated with this project. It combines innovative technology with sophisticated financing technique and draws on the advantages of the location in Brandenburg.”
Cyclics Corporation, headquartered in Schenectady, New York, manufactures innovative plastics, based on technology developed and patented by GE, that offer breakthroughs in processing, making new products possible and changing the economics of existing ones. Cyclics has an alliance with Dow Automotive to develop CBT resins for automotive applications. The water-like processing viscosities of Cyclics’ engineering thermoplastic products offer improvements in performance and productivity for structural composites, compounding, casting and rotational molding.
KfW IPEX-Bank offers short, medium and long term export finance in Euro, US-Dollar and major currencies, complex structured and project finance, partly covered by European Export Credit Agencies, asset based financing, credit lines, corporate loans and factoring. It covers the business areas of industry, transport and infrastructure as well as telecommunications, raw materials, energy, environmental technology, aviation and shipping.
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