Perth technology company Hazer Group wrapped up its first day of trading on the ASX, after completing a $5 million initial public offering.
Perth technology company Hazer Group wrapped up its first day of trading on the ASX, after completing a $5 million initial public offering.
Hazer opened at 25 cents per share and spent most of the day hovering around 23 cents, before closing at 21.5 cents each with a market capitalisation of $8.79 million.
Its IPO was priced at 20 cents per share.
Hazer has developed technology at The University Of Western Australia that produces both low-cost clean hydrogen and battery-grade synthetic graphite, with funding provided by Wesfarmers.
Its top shareholders include Mineral Resources, which bought $400,000 worth of shares in the IPO, The University Of Western Australia, Wesfarmers, and Bryant Mclarty, managing director of Mac Equity Partners International (which was employed to broker the deal).
Hazer managing director Geoff Pocock said the goal for the company was to fully commercialise its technology and give investors exposure into the international hydrogen market.
“This listing allows us to rapidly expand our research capabilities and will significantly progress our ambitions to create a pilot plant processing facility,” he said.
“Hydrogen has numerous applications, but is increasingly in demand for clean energy production through the use of fuel cell technologies.
“Yet, despite this growing need for hydrogen, its production remains expensive carbon dioxide-intensive, thereby negating the effectiveness of these clean energy products.
“We believe that the requirement for cheap, low emissions hydrogen represents a gap in the market which Hazer will be able to operate in, through the use of our technology.”
Hazer was created through a ‘methane cracking’ research project at UWA in 2006, and was initially developed through funding from the Australia Research Council, Wesfarmers and US tech development firm XL TechGroup.
Hazer was established as a proprietary limited company in 2010 to further commercialise it’s ‘Hazer Process’ research, at which point all relevant intellectual property was assigned from UWA to the company.
Meanwhile, Navitas boss Rod Jones’s company, Hoperidge Capital, has taken a 5 per cent stake in US technology company Updater, which will begin trading on the ASX next week after completing an oversubscribed $22 million IPO managed by Moelis & Company and Euroz.
Updater owns an online platform that helps people moving house with a centralised service for forwarding email, transferring services and updating accounts and records.
Hoperidge has previously backed local tech companies that completed backdoor listings earlier this year, including imagery tech company Spookfish.
