private equity backs tzl, page-19

Text of the SMH article: 250 mlj revenues in 2 to 5 years. High margin profit business: let's say minimum of 75 mlj profit a year. Klaas is probably right with his estimates of a possible market-cap on NASDAQ of 1,5 BLJ plus.

Aussie firm's nuts, bolts go high-tech
Email Print Normal font Large font January 24, 2007 - 5:06PM

Advertisement
AdvertisementAn Australian company that has turned nuts and bolts into a high tech business is gearing up for rapid growth in the US where its customers include airlines and car-makers.

Chicago-based TZ Ltd, which started life almost three years ago as an "ideas" group that intended to live off its royalties, now finds itself as a manufacturer after some astute acquisitions.

TZ on Wednesday re-acquired exclusive rights to commercialise its intelligent fasteners with the acquisition of Intevia, a stand-alone business of US-based Acumen Global Technologies.

In return, TZ will hand Acumen a 10 per cent stake in the form of 19.3 million ordinary shares.

TZ president Chris Kelliher, a former chief executive of Microsoft in Australia and New Zealand, said there had been a tremendous customer reaction to its invention of remotely controlled nuts and bolts.

They are being used in car engines and for securing first class and business class seats to the floor of planes as well as in car dashboards.

"The world has an insatiable appetite for remote controlled movement - from central locking in cars, to remote controls on TVs - just about every home appliance, even down to iPods," Mr Kelliher said.

"When stimulated a certain way, such as passing energy through them or heating them, the nuts and bolts change their material properties and that produces a movement."

He said TZ was not inventing a new way to hold things together, rather changing the way you can physically manipulate them.

"Traditional nuts and bolts have been very dumb objects and we are giving them intelligence," Mr Kelliher said.

He said that when you can remotely control fasteners you don't have to worry about a tool pathway.

"Using this technologically you can theoretically make cars shorter because you don't have to worry about leaving space so a mechanic can get to bolts in the engines," he said.

He said the market for the smart nuts and bolts could be worth up to $US250 million ($A316.0 million) within two to five years.

"Based on fasteners we have in development, customer engagement and interest, we have revenue opportunity around $US250 million," Mr Kelliher said.

"There is huge interest and we're tremendously buoyed by it.

"This is a whole new way of designing, manufacturing and servicing products that will have a dramatic effect on the manufacturing industry."

TZ, which has appointed former Acumen business development chief David Feber as its new chief executive, is seeking a NASDAQ listing in the US.

While the business and its 560 staff are based in the US, TZ's board of directors remains in Australia.

© 2007 AAP