Manufacturing and engineering company Ilika plc has recently been floated on AIM, the London Stock Exchange’s international market for smaller growing companies. The listing comes just days after Lord Sainsbury’s address at the annual SMF (Sainsbury Management Fellows’ Society) dinner, whereby he stressed the importance to continue to move the UK’s manufacturing and service industries into higher-value areas to help them to compete in global markets.
Ilika is an advanced materials company which accelerates the discovery of new and patentable materials that are used by the energy, electronics and biomedical sectors. Experiments carried out by the Ilika can be executed 10 to 100 times faster than using traditional techniques.
IIika’s chief executive Graeme Purdy is a Sainsbury Management Fellow. . As such he received a scholarship to study for an MBA . SMF was established in 1987 by Lord Sainsbury to position engineers as UK business leaders. Each year up to 14 scholarships are awarded to top class engineers.
“Ilika is the perfect example of how a UK manufacturing company is performing strongly in a higher value sector. The SMF Society strongly believes that to increase the competitiveness of the UK economy more directors are needed in UK boardrooms that have the knowledge of how products are imagined, designed, made and work, combined with complementary business and management skills set within a global mindset. Graeme Purdy’s has proven this with the success of Ilika,” said SMF president David Falzani.
“We are delighted by the strong support new and existing shareholders have shown for developing the business through an AIM listing. Ilika is already generating revenues from its own two successful biomedical products and has a pipeline of materials partnered with large multinational companies. This listing marks the beginning of a new phase in the Company’s development, where its technology will help meet the need for advanced new materials, particularly in the energy and electronic industries,” said Ilika chief executive, Graeme Purdy.
The income generated through the floating of Ilika will be used to fund the further development of identified materials for the energy, electronics and biomedical sectors.
