Well, we have to be across this one., page-3

Good Pick-up Pinto,

This re-ignites the discussion RE: buy out vs. takeover vs. muscled out by the big players

Du Pont's current FR offering NOMEX, services a separate niche in the market, being fire resistance rather than fire retardant.

With the assumption that we have our IP sown up tight and that we are aggressively pursuing R&D (which we know we are, alexicool), I am buoyed by growing interests in fire retardants from the big players. However there are so many different possibilities and directions things could go.

Being muscled out by the big players is always a possibility.
I am much more interested in the expeditious commercialisation of our product, so that we can ensure first mover advantage and build a "moat" around the business than I am for the purpose of moving the SP in the short term.

If Du Pont wants to move into fire retardant products it will obviously make good business sense to buy the market leader and use their own enormous scale to synergise and market the product. Enter Alexium.

There is the possibility that they might work on producing their own tech, buying patents and developing them in-house. I don't give to much weight to this option, but in big business there are big egos at play and they may want take pride in showing they can do it themselves (think Woolworths and Masters. Buying out Home Hardware or Mitre10 would have been much smarter, less costly and significantly de-risked).

I had always thought of AJX as a business that was being built simply with an underlying intention to be bought as a bolt on to an existing major player.
The more I think about the Alexium business I am less convinced that we are the kind of business that would integrate into a monster like Dow/DuPont. We are a boutique business that does lots of upfront groundwork to tailor a product for each customer, once this is done we have the customer locked in and this is the intrinsic value of the business.
I'm not sure this is the kind of business Dow or DuPont are interested in running, too much effort for the return.

Reading the Tea Leaves: I see a future where Alexium is partnered with existing product manufacturers (eg Sealy, Under Armour) to produce products that will compete on the market with companies producing their own stand alone products (See Flamesafe Maxisoft: http://www.flamesafeworkwear.com/).

I just can't see anyone coming close to competing with us in the niche we are developing for ourselves, and I don't see a threat from massive multinationals wanting to deal with clients on the integrated level that we do.