Metalysis enters administration following financial difficulties
June 22, 2019
Metalysis’s office at the Materials Discovery Centre, Rotherham
Metalysis Ltd., Rotherham, South Yorkshire, UK, is reported to have entered administration and is seeking a buyer following financial difficulties, reports Rotherham Business News. The company holds the worldwide exploitation rights to the FCC Cambridge process, developed at Cambridge University in the late 1990s; a solid-state, modular, electrochemical process said to be able to produce tens-to-hundreds of tonnes of high-value, niche and master alloy powders per annum.
With a Materials Discovery Centre on the Advanced Manufacturing Park (AMP), also in Rotherham, Metalysis announced in March 2018 that it had raised £12 million to fund new state-of-the-art post-processing facilities, the acquisition of feedstock and to provide working capital to support the roll-out of its Gen4 facility, the first to take the FCC Cambridge process to industrial scale. Overall, approximately £25 million was raised by the company to bring the project to completion.
Eddie Williams and Chris Petts of Grant Thornton UK LLP, have been appointed joint administrators and the firm stated that Metalysis has experienced financial difficulties predominantly due to an extended recent investment round. Metalysis formerly employed sixty people at its two sites, thirty-seven of whom have been made redundant as of June 19, according to The Business Desk.
Eddie Williams, advisory partner at Grant Thornton UK LLP, stated, “Metalysis is a truly innovative UK business with a unique disruptive technology that urgently requires new ownership and further ongoing investment. Despite the directors’ best efforts and significant global interest, the business could not continue to operate without the protection of administration.”
“Our immediate priority and urgent focus is to work alongside a credible interested party to secure immediate investment as part of a sale process and we would encourage any parties with interest to contact the administrators. With that support, I would hope that the business can continue to operate and thrive.”
