Mar 22 2016
The directors of Pacific American Coal Limited (“PAK”) are pleased to announce that PAK has entered into a Heads of Agreement (“HoA”) to become the largest shareholder in Imagine Intelligent Materials Pty Ltd (“Imagine IM”), a company that develops commercial applications for graphene and associated advanced carbon based materials ("Proposed Transaction").
Imagine IM is the leading Australian developer of graphene-based coatings for industrial textiles and fibres. It was founded in 2014 by a group of scientists led by Chris Gilbey and Phil Aitchison, with a vision to create disruptive products and solutions that use graphene. Imagine IM has developed a licensing and certification model to ensure that participants in the supply chain are required to meet a set of standards of materials quality. Imagine IM is the first company in the world to develop conductive geomaterials using functionalised graphene.
Graphene is the first two dimensional material and is classed as a “super-material” offering extremely high electrical and thermal conductivity, hydrophobicity, strength, and impermeability to all gases. Graphene’s discoverers were awarded the Nobel Prize in 2010.
Chris Gilbey is the CEO of Imagine IM. He has led businesses driven by monetizing intellectual property for over 35 years. As CEO of Lake Technology Limited (ASX), he led the company from being research-focused to becoming a product manufacturing and licensing business. This resulted in the company being acquired by Dolby Laboratories Inc. He joined Dolby and developed and executed a strategy to grow Dolby’s key licensing markets in consumer electronics in Korea, Japan and China. This created a substantial increase in
margin contribution in the next 24 months synchronous with Dolby’s IPO. After leaving Dolby he became Entrepreneur in Residence at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science at the University of Wollongong. While there he developed a strategy to spin out a novel water splitting technology which led to the formation of Aquahydrex, which was funded by a US venture capital firm. Prior to being involved in technology businesses, Chris Gilbey was an entrepreneur in the music industry, and was involved in launching the careers of a number of globally successful artistes including AC/DC, Keith Urban and InXs. He was awarded the Order of Australia for his services to the Australian music industry and charity. He is an Honorary Principal Fellow at the Sydney Business School.
Phil Aitchison is Head of R&D and Chief Operating Officer of Imagine IM. He is a research executive with over 20 years experience in applied materials science, intellectual property, manufacturing, licensing and technology commercialisation. His main fields of success have been in energy storage, notably lithium-ion batteries and supercapacitors where nano-materials and carbon composites play a key role. In 2014 Phil joined with Chris Gilbey to co-found Imagine IM. Prior to this Phil was Vice President of Research and Development at CAP-XX, an Australian supercapacitor developer and manufacturer, which gave the world the highest power supercapacitors, the value of which was recognised by the license to Murata of Japan, one of the world’s leading semiconductor manufacturers. Previously, Phillip developed revolutionary lithium-ion battery technology and manufacturing processes at Pacific Lithium in New Zealand, technology that was acquired by 3M (USA). He has a Doctorate in Chemistry awarded jointly in 1998 by the University of Montpellier, France and Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. He is routinely invited to give international conference presentations in energy storage, nanotechnology and technology commercialisation. He is the author of a dozen patents, international scientific publications and has been a supervisor and mentor to dozens of students.
Summary
The board of PAK is positive about the direction in which PAK is headed, in particular about the acquisition of its significant interest in Imagine IM. Full details will be provided to shareholders with the notice ofmeeting and explanatory memorandum. The board looks forward to the support of shareholders in finalising the Proposed Transaction.