Gelion (LSE:GELN) — Investor Presentation

0:01 Good morning, and welcome to the GELN PLC Investor Presentation. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in listen only mode. Questions are encouraged, and they can be submitted at any time using the Q and A tab situated on the right hand corner of your screen. Just simply type in your questions and press send. Before we begin, I would like to submit the following poll. And I would now like to hand you over to nonexecutive chairman, doctor Steve Mahone. Good morning to you. Good morning. GELLON made two important announcements on Tuesday this week, and purpose of this update to investors is to explain the it. The first of those announcements was we announced the partnership, one of the US government's natural labs. This is part of our entry strategy into The US.

0:53 In advanced batteries, lithium sulfur, we believe, can be a competitive and strategically important chemistry for that. Western countries are all looking for over their supply chains. In all the Western governments, The US is by far the most aggressive and leading in terms of their spend on on procurement of advanced technologies in this space and in the defense space. The US defense budget is 10 times that of of The UK. So our goal is to be the category leader, the number one in the world on lithium sulfur batteries and on the sulfur chemistry for batteries. You can't be the global leader if you don't have a strategy, and this marks the start of our US market entry.

1:44 The second announcement that we're transitioning to a new CEO today, we have both John and Matt on the call today. John is retiring, and I and we've invited John to to the call and share his thoughts and reasons with you all. And then it will be my pleasure to introduce Matt to you today. John came to me about nine months ago to talk about how he could start processes stepping back to the business and how do we manage this in the most professional and efficient way that we can. And so we plotted a path to what does the stage of the company need to be at where we can go to the next phase where a new CEO can come in and look at how we scale up to more advanced commercial partnerships.

2:33 And, John, six months since this turn of the year, as you have seen a series of announcements to put that platform in place. We engaged one of the leading global executive search firms. They screened hundreds of candidates, and we were delighted that our lead candidate, Matt, was able to come and join us. We were someone who had experience lived and operated in Europe and Asia, had experience of making battery materials and carbon based which is the core competence we need in our team. And so it'll be really, I hope, an exciting few years with Matt at the helm.

3:19 But firstly, I'd like to hand to and ask him to give his reflections on the business and and his rationale for why he feels that's right. John, maybe I'll hand the floor to you now. Thanks very much, Steve. First of all, you know, a a huge thank you to all the shareholders who backed GELION in the mission in our mission during my tenure. It's been a real honor being the the CEO of GELION. I'm an innovation CEO. I came to the company with a a very, very clear focus. What the board asked me to do was to accelerate the path from innovation to commercialization and to position the business for meaningful global impact and long term success.

4:09 Well, I was blessed by the team that I found when I came into, GELION. They're a wonderful team. They've done a magnificent job, and GELION is strongly set on those goals today. The art of innovation, it's something I've done on my life. This is thirty five year career, as, an innovation CEO. At the end of the day, to me, it's establishing product market fit, for the technology that you represent and to integrate it into the global supply chain so that it's adopted everywhere. World is very competitive today. You wanna be number one, in your market sector, and this, our nano encapsulated sulfur has a huge scope of product market fit.

4:58 So GELION today has a very clear, focus towards high growth around development, scaling, and commercialization of NES. It has an awesome and highly effective team. Devastated to be leaving them personally. They're they're being so supportive in in my tenure. But I've made this decision for personal reasons in this stage of my life that when I'm doing this, I'm in boots and all working twelve to sixteen hours a day. We got a few things that I'm gonna be doing before I get too old to do them, And I am completely convinced that we've found the right person to take the business forward here now in that.

5:46 There's a lot of innovation ahead. But also, the company now will be drilling its focus around execution and scaling, and we needed a CEO, that had the experience to deliver this next stage. I've had the pleasure of interacting with Matt from bit bit over a month now in preparing for this transition. He's a a very strong, honest leader. I'm 100% sure he'll do a great job. And Steve and our board did an excellent job in their transition planning. So very pleased to hand over to you, Matt, if you would, take the address to our shareholders from here. Thanks, John. I appreciate it. Well, thank you everybody for for giving me this platform to to to talk to you today. I'm gonna go through just a few simple things. I'll give a little bit of background about myself and then really talk importantly about why I'm excited to be joining GELION.

6:46 And then the fantastic news about this CRADA and the collaboration with the National Lab of of the Rockies and why that's really, really important for GELION, particularly as we go into this this next phase. So I'm Matt. I've spent the last more than twenty years in the energy and and performance materials space. The last fifteen years of which have been at Cabot Corporation, global specialty chemicals and performance materials company, and really a leader in in that. And through my various roles there, they've really been about developing, scaling, and growing performance materials businesses, including Cabot's battery materials business.

7:36 And so I've had experience scaling a a a materials business into the battery space. I've run p and l's of different sizes from from $10,000,000 of revenue to more than 2,000,000,000 of revenue and businesses with teams of of anywhere from 20 people to more than than 2,000 people. And I am extremely honored and excited to be joining joining GELION. The reasons that I'm excited are manifold, but really it boils down to three principal things. I think firstly, it's the technology. It is a proven technology and not just by GELION, not just internally validated, but actually validated by our partners, the people who want to use this material.

8:26 And that's not only important, but it also differentiates GELION from some other battery materials companies who have validated their technology but haven't had it validated by by customers. So proven technology, by our partners. The second reason is that this is eminently scalable. I've had experience of scaling manufacturing for for performance materials businesses. And one of my first questions to Steven and the board was around, you know, great. That's a great material, but how do you make it? And whilst our our nonencapsulated sulfur material is really special, actually, the processes that you need to make this at scale do not require invention.

9:15 They are processes that exist in the world today at scale, and we will need engineering partners to to build that into a functioning system, but there's no invention required. And and so that that was a really, really important thing because in my experience, that's a a large part of the battle. And then lastly, the partnerships that John and the team have built. And I think what's really neat is that we've got partners in in different regions with TDK in Asia, with with Nissan in in Europe, with Kinetic in Europe, and now with the National Lab of the Rockies in The US, But also in different applications across different cell chemistries for lithium metal anode, which is a great fit for defense applications with graphite and silicon or graphite silicon anodes, which is a great fit across quite a wide range of applications and now even in solid state chemistries.

10:20 And so, you know, this is this is hugely, hugely exciting. It's it's really unique in my experience to have such a such a great spread of of top tier partners. And so, yeah, proven technology, eminently scalable process, and and great partners. And so I am really, really grateful to John, you know, what he's handing over to me and what I look forward to stewarding for our shareholders. It's a business that has clarity. We are a sulfur battery materials company. It has a very, very strong IP foundation. It has fantastic partnerships. And now we have added to that the CRADA with the National Lab of the Rockies, and and what that gives us is an entry point into The US, and so that gives us some partnership in another part of the geographic spread, but also a scale up path, and I'll talk a little bit about that.

11:19 But first, maybe, a little bit of background on the crater and, the National Lab of the Rockies. So National Lab of the Rockies, NLR, formerly NREL. Some folks know it, by its its former name, is a federally funded lab in The United States underneath the Department of Energy, and it's in Colorado. And it's one of a network of federal labs, and people may have heard of Los Alamos, Argonne National Lab, Idaho National Lab. So there are others out there. But the important thing about NLR, it is the national lab that's dedicated to energy technologies. It's a 300 acre campus. It's got more than three and a half thousand staff, and its mission is to facilitate the application of research into practical settings.

12:15 So this just matches perfectly with what GELION is bringing to to The United States and more broadly to the battery industry. A CRADA stands for a cooperative research and development agreement between national labs and public or private enterprises. And I think what's important here is it's research and development, not necessarily just r and d. And so what we're doing is very much in the development bucket with with the program with. So, hopefully, that's a little bit to to put some some color to this. You can see on the slide we've got, you know, what we'll go through in this program, providing our materials, designing and building with NLRs, help on the technology, some fantastic cells to prototype, validating them, validating the materials, validating the cells, and validating the manufacturing processes.

13:17 And then it it ends in a in a domestic pilot plant in The United States, the first production plant at scale of this material, the first in The US. And that then paves the way for commercial qualification across a wide wide range of applications. So why is this important to GELION? Well, I've been involved in CRADRS before. John's been involved in CRADRS before at other companies, and there are lots of good things you can say about it. But there are five parts of the why, why is this important, that really stand out to me. The first and foremost is the major external validation of this technology in The United States. We've had validation in other regions with other partners.

14:03 Now this will give us this validation in The United States and specifically by a federal agency, which comes with a huge amount of credibility. Secondly, we can leverage that credibility to secure two parts of funding that were previously harder for us to go and get. So one is non dilutive grant funding, which there are big pools in The United States, particularly for this type of technology at the moment. And the second is access to a group of strategic investors. And so there are investors out there. We've met with some of them that look for companies that have signed creators because it comes with that credibility. And so both of these are big pools, and the timing of this is is important because of The US focus on energy independence and on national security and defense.

14:58 And so we're bringing this material to a market that really values the the value proposition that we have. The third part is acceleration. So this accelerates our our path to commercialization. And so not only does it get us our our pilot plant, but it's a structured program of sell of materials, sales, and manufacturing qualification. So that will give us credibility with defense, energy storage, electric vehicle customers in The United States, but that includes US government procurement. So this is access into those those markets. So when we put those things together, the fourth thing to say about this is it derisks our scale up. We've got the major technical validation, which reduce our our technical risk. We've got then commercial qualification.

15:52 It accelerates our path to commercialization. It brings down our market risk. And so, really, this is a very important thing for derisking GELION's path forward. And then lastly, and by by no means least, it unlocks US market access for GELION. So I've worked with US companies, four US companies, and and living and working in The US, all of those for some for some time. And my experience has been US companies like doing business with companies that have a footprint in The United States. They want to delink from Chinese supply chains under the current environment, and that's one of the key features of GELION's technology. It's it's based on sulfur chemistry.

16:41 Sulfur is abundant, in the world, but The US has somewhere in the range of 15% of the world's sulfur production. It's it's a byproduct of the, oil and gas, refining, and chemicals industries. And they want things to be fast, they want things to be real. And the CRADA now will deliver all of those things for us. It'll give us a local footprint with credibility. It enables then The US to to to delink part of its supply chain with an alternative cathode material for its cells, and it will accelerate. It will make it fast, and it will very much make it real. And so for me, the the CRADA will deliver all of those things. So just to reiterate, the CRADA is important to us because it's a major external validation with the highest level of credibility in that market.

17:35 It will then enable us to take that and leverage it to access pools of funding that were were maybe not available to us before. Those are not a given, but we now have a very, very credible way of of pursuing those and engaging on those. Thirdly, it will accelerate our path to commercialization. Fourthly, it will help us derisk commercialization and scale up. And then it will be this sort of absolutely important key in the door to unlock access into The US market, particularly The US defense market in a very, very credible way. And then when we put all of that together with the fantastic work that John and the team have delivered and you've seen recent announcements on on Max Planck on the solid state battery battery program with with Nissan, then actually GELION really becomes a global cathode company.

18:32 And you can see our partnerships here across the world in different regions and with the different partners with whom we are extremely proud to be working. So, yeah, hopefully, that's brought a bit of color to to where we are. It's the same mission that John has been stewarding the company through. It's just the next phase of that mission. I'm extremely proud to be the person who's been entrusted to lead that, And I think the platform that you see on the screen is a fantastic one that we that we now need to go and both execute on and and supplement. And so, Alex, I think now probably best if I hand back to you for some some questions. That's great. Thank you very much indeed for your presentation, Matt. Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions using the Q and A tab situated on the top right corner of your screen.

19:24 Would like to remind you the recording of this presentation, along with a copy of the slides and the published Q and A can be accessed via our investor dashboard. And Simon, at this point, if I may hand over to you, sir, to take us through the Q and A session, and I'll pick up from you at the end. Thank you. Thanks, Alex. Let's start with some pre submitted ones. Question for you, Matt. What lessons and experience from your time at Cabot are you bringing to GELION? And where do you see the greatest opportunity to apply those lessons? Well, thank you. Great great question. And I'm sure as the the new person on the screen, people are interested to to know. So I was lucky enough at Cabot to have a a really wide range of experiences. I would say the most relevant ones to this fantastic opportunity at GELION would be the following. Firstly, an understanding of the battery industry, including the the needs of different applications, customer qualification processes, companies like Panasonic, Samsung SDI, Tesla, PowerCo, which is which is Volkswagen, and the industry structure. It's an industry that's built on on on partnerships, and and understanding that, I think, is something I I bring with me. Secondly is experience of scaling production and and rear particularly the the strategic options that are out there for any company in terms of deploying capacity through through different models.

20:51 And then lastly, experience of building and maintaining partnerships across different regions of the world. That's been across different industries, including in the battery industry and the battery materials industry, and it's something that that John has obviously done a fantastic job of and I'm glad that I can bring some experience to that as well. Thanks, Matt. Fairly obvious question, this one. You've now got you're operating across The UK, Australia, Japan, and now The US as well. How how are you going to lead an organization that's geographically dispersed as that? Yeah. It's fantastic. It's I'm really looking forward to it. I I think, you know, honestly, I I'm used to it.

21:36 Most of my experiences involve leading global teams and cross regional collaborations within organizations and and between organizations. And so, you know, I'm used to it. My preference is often to to be in person, but the the the key things in in managing it are, firstly, ensuring everyone in our team understands our mission and our priorities so that they can make good choices. Secondly, I think being thoughtful about what to delegate. So when you don't need to travel, when the team can go and just do it themselves versus when to be in person or when being in person will make the difference. And then I would also say, you know, knowing what the important things are for being at home because that has to be balanced in all of this.

22:28 So, yeah, I I I'm not only used to it, but I I relish it quite frankly. And and so, it was one of the attractive things about coming to GELION is, it is genuinely a global, a global company, and, it's a it's an environment that I thrive in. Thank you. Are there any have you identified any gaps both in terms of capability and skills in the management team? Are you going to be do you need to go and hire? Well, look. I mean, I'm day three on the job. As John said, thankfully, I've I've been lucky enough to have a month in the background seeing how John and the team work and and and what they're working on and trying to get up to speed to have a flying start, but it's still kind of very early.

23:19 What I would say is my first observation is, and John alluded to it, that I have inherited a really capable team. And so, you know, the short answer is is no. My experience is that as we scale up, we will need to complement the skills of the team. To give some examples, you know, working with EPC firms, manufacturing operations, global key account management. These are things that have to come as we climb the maturity curve, but we're not there yet. There there's not the need to do that yet. We have a very, very capable team for where we are. Follow on from that, I guess. You're going to be based in in The UK. Does that mean changes to the management team in Australia?

24:10 No. I mean, we we I am based in The UK. We already have a very capable team in place, as I've said, across The UK, Australia, and in The US, actually, where we have Tracy Sizemore, our our senior vice president of global partnerships, really deeply experienced gentleman and a great part of our team. So no no need for immediate changes. Three of the leadership roles are in Australia, our CFO, our CTO, and and our HR lead. And so the short answer is my role being in The UK doesn't change anything. We're a global company. I've just described how we're gonna work. We'll continue to work globally, and so no need for immediate changes in Australia.

25:04 You mentioned in a proactive interview that you were expecting additional partnerships for July and later this year. Can you say anything about these? Will they be commercial or government? Or is it is it going to be in the EV space? Yeah. So, look, this is a great question. I'm sure it's the the hot one on everybody's lips, but I'm sure you'll understand that that I can't give specifics. We are pursuing partnerships across a number of applications, including drones, including EVs, and across short, medium, and longer term horizons. That's very important. And across the value chain, whether that's with with end applications, with cell makers, or people that make complementary materials in our space with which our our materials interact inside a cell.

25:59 And so we're pursuing partnerships across all three of those different things, different end markets, different time horizons and different parts of the value chain. But unfortunately, at this stage, can't give any specifics. Thank you. A couple of questions around Kinetic. One, drones have been in the news recently here in The UK. What can you tell us about drones in The UK? And secondly, where are you with the Kinetic collaboration? Can you give us an update? So, Steve, maybe I can pass this one to you, and you might be best placed to to answer this one. Thanks, Matt. Well, we're on track with Kinetic. We said we would publish data here, and we're on track to do that. And we have made perhaps sales I mean, I can't speak to Kinetic's plans with the new DIP recently announced, drones are and autonomous vehicles are core generic advanced batteries, and it should be advised that The UK alongside US and and most of the NATO countries are actively pursuing solutions in this space.

27:22 Thank you. You mentioned in the September 25 collaboration agreement announcement with TDK that the principal objective over the next twelve months is to progress to prototype lines. Are you still on track for that? So, John, I mean, you've been the architect of of this. If it's okay, I'll I'll pass this one to you. Oh, you're on mute. Isn't strong. Our CTO, Lewis Adrianson, and his team, they work very closely with the TDK battery team. We're progressing testing. We exchange progress systematically with them.

28:09 We have two goals on the way to getting a a prototype production. First is to get to what we call our our next game to what we call our MVP baseline. This is a combination of performance characteristics that we've set as to qualify for commercialization. And, we do anticipate sharing, this generation of material with TDK, shortly. So great progress by team GELION on that one. Second one is to scale up our fabrication capabilities to be able to make the nest in sufficient scale to support a prototype production line. And we're working to that goal in parallel. Again, team GELION doing a great job on the process technology evolution as well.

28:58 There's still risk in both of those schedules. However, the team is progressing systematically, working diligently towards them. And every day that I was walking into the office, they were inspiring me with their progress every day. So I would say generally on track. Thank you very much. We keep hearing, you've said a couple of times that sulfur is abundant. But how do you actually collect it at scale required for if the world adopts your battery technology? And who would process it? So I'll take this one. So sulfur is a is a byproduct of some very, very well established industries.

29:45 It's a byproduct of the sulfurization process in in refineries, in gas, natural gas processing and in some chemicals complexes around the world and supplies very well established downstream industries like sulfuric acid production, fertilizers and others. So there is already a very, very strong global market for producing sulfur, particularly the type of sulfur that that would be used in batteries, is used in batteries amongst other industries with some really very well established producers. I mean, BASF Shell, Chevron, Exxon, Saudi Aramco, Mosaic, CF Industries. And so I don't worry about sulfur supply.

30:31 It's it's no one's gotta go out and invent anything to come and start collecting it. And then just to to put it in in perspective, there are in the range of a 100,000,000 tons a year of sulfur produced globally. And if you just pick a single market to to to sort of make the point, if every electric vehicle in The United States, every electric vehicle that's produced in The United States used cells that had nano encapsulated sulfur as its cathode, you'd need about 40 to 50,000 of that 100,000,000 tons.

31:18 And if we're in that position, we're in an absolutely fabulous position. And so, yeah, I I'm not worried about about the the sulfur supply globally. The great thing one of the many great things about our material is that a little bit goes a very, very long way. And that really is the sweet spot for Performance Materials. Thank you. Quite a technical question yet. Do you have any plans to release specific measured energy density numbers for the drop in graphitic cell? And separately, do you plan to release real cycle life data for the lithium metal cells?

32:05 Just curious whether those statistics or measurements that you're going to be providing. Steve, I'm gonna duck this one and and pass it over to you if that's okay. It's coming to me? Okay. Look. The answer is yes. The company will be giving all those numbers in time. One of the one of the big things about our relationship with the National Laboratory, the Rockies, is that it is about going from through the process of of testing the qualification and the regulatory compliance as well. So the core part of the first phase of of that particular relationship is all about getting third party validated performance numbers that will be utilized in the commercialization of the cells to the major customers that depend on that sort of quality testing.

33:02 So watch this space. The the performance of the material is amazing. Our team does a lot of testing. We test with living metal. We test with graphitic anodes. One thing that knocks me over every time is just how reliable the nest is. Thank you, Max Planck Institute of College and Interfaces for trusting us with that relationship. And thank you to team GELION for the wonderful work taking that initial concept and then bringing it all the way through to the amazing product that it is today. Thanks, John. Question on the crater. How long will the process take to to get validation?

33:50 Can you give us an estimate? So, John, I'll I'll touch on this and then perhaps pass over to you to see if I've if there's anything I've missed. But phase one of the crater, which is the the material and cell validation, I think is in the first twelve months. I can see John nodding. Anything I've missed there, John? Abs absolutely. It's it it ties straight to the previous question that was that was asked, Matt. So, yeah, the first stage is is twelve months. Thank you. Where do you now see the most likely first commercial take up? Asia, Europe, or The US?

34:40 That's a really good question. I mean, I'd like to say all of the above. It's but without being glib, it it will it will depend on a lot of things. It depends on the chemistries that they're using, how quickly they they get their chemistries fixed. Sometimes it's not just all about, you know, your material. There are battery cells are the most complex downstream market I've worked in in in fifteen, sixteen years in chemistry. And so making I quite often say this to to people, but making a battery is hard. Making a battery that works is even harder, and making a battery that works economically is is is harder still. And so our customers, the people who are using the material, their adoption of this depends on those things, and that's why picking the right partners is really important. I think the important thing here is that we've picked really good partners. They've they've solved and cracked those challenges. They know how to make batteries. They know how to make batteries that work, and they know how to make them economically.

35:43 And so it's really hard to put a timeline on it. It's really hard to put which one will come over the line first. I think the important thing is we're working with the right people in the right places on the right applications. Thank you. Does the increased interest in sodium ion, like from cattle, make it a path that you're going to be addressing? Well, know how much John is passionate about sodium sodium ion batteries, and so it would be rude of me not to to give him a chance to speak on this topic. But it's important. It's important in the world for a number of reasons that that Jon will discuss, I'm sure, but we are doing some technical work on on sodium ion. I I think the important things in there for me are we've got a lot to do, and so we have to make sure there's a kind of a priority order in where we're focusing.

36:40 And so we need to be really thoughtful about the technical success in in taking on something, you know, new programs and product market fit. And I think that's something that John's champion so strongly is product market fit. And then the one thing I'd I'd add to that is, you know, we we don't just want to chase sodium because there's a lot of news about it at the moment. We want to make sure we're chasing the right sodium ion chemistry with the right partners. And so we have got a bit of work going on in the company assessing this at the moment. I can't give a definitive answer whether to the answer to the question, I can't give a definitive answer whether this is something that we will definitively be or not be doing.

37:26 John, I'll pass to you because I you know, you you're really hot on on sulfur, and I think you've you've seen the work that's been going on in the world on that. Thanks, man. Yeah. Look. What I said earlier is NEST has such a broad product market fit. One of the absolutely amazing things about the NEST technology is actually the same material, the same NEST material can be coated on a cathode, and then that coated cathode can be combined in a system that uses lithium ions as the charge carrier and can be used with a system that uses sodium ion as the as the charge carrier as well. Now lithium has a higher energy density. Sodium is cheaper.

38:12 So with Ness, we have this material that has a huge product market fit. Firstly, the lithium metal, obviously, giving us the the highest energy density, highest graphic metric energy density you could ask for. Fantastic material for that extent. Then you go to the graphitic and the graphitic with silicon cell, and that's a drop in. So that that in the case of that material, we can go to pair with standard anodes and standard electrolytes. It's one of the truly remarkable things about this. And then you come to the one that, as as Matt says, really speaks to my heart, which is the room temperature sodium sulfur. And and that cell is literally sodium sulfur, and carbon.

39:04 And it's the furthest along the line in terms of those three cell areas I talked about. But the potential for that room temperature sodium sulfur, which will be a a a an ultra low cost cell that can be produced from materials that are available abundantly anywhere in the world is huge. And that's the that's the scope that GELION has as the as the sulfur battery company to be able to commercialize early, to drop in commercialize, and then to be able to have this this third stage, which is just to me, be so influential to have that that cell being able to produce all around the world. Matt, thanks for for giving me the chance to to talk on that one. It is an area of passion. I think if I hadn't have, I might have got in I might have got a red card at the World Cup by putting my hand out of my mouth at the wrong time or something like that. So it is an area of passion as you as you can pick up.

40:03 Thank you very much. Is your route to market to try and go through existing battery manufacturers? And how many of those are currently evaluating NES? Yes. So I think the beauty of one of the beauties of this material, nano encapsulated sulfur cathode material is that it can drop into existing production lines. And I've seen a lot of battery companies bringing new tech battery materials companies bringing new technologies into the market that are great, that that that are fantastic materials, but they require the cell makers to to do something different, whatever that might be. Sort of completely retool, align, change the atmospheric conditions, you know, add extra pieces of equipment, add a process somewhere into their existing manufacturing process.

41:17 And that's that's not the case for our material. And so what that means is there are some companies out there that then they're a battery materials company, but they have they are forced to go and start to make cells to prove that their material can work. And that's a very expensive endeavor. Making cells is is a very expensive endeavor. And so, the beauty of our material is that it can be used on existing lines by existing manufacturers who solve those problems that I talked about before, who who built factories, who've who who can make batteries, can make chemistry work, and can do it competitively. And so they are the best partners for us to be working with in in my opinion. And, again, you can see the names on the on the screen of the ones that we're working with. Of course, there are others that evaluating our materials.

42:12 And I'd perhaps just hand to Steve to see if you've got anything you'd you'd sort of add to that. Hi, Steve. Can you hear us? Let me just you are now muted. Go ahead, Steve. Yeah. Maybe you can just repeat that question, Matt. So it's it's about will we be working with with cell manufacturers as opposed to making batteries and then our other cell manufacturers beyond the ones we've got on the screen testing our materials. And, you know, my response to that is the beauty of our material is that we don't have to go and make cells because it works on existing cell lines. We haven't got to make cells ourselves to make our technology work.

43:02 And that as well as the folks that you can see on the screen, there are others out there testing our materials, but we're not ready to say yet exactly who they are. Yeah. I mean, I think you and John covered it in that one of the real advantages we have is the development where all of our development work builds a platform, and it is nearly all relevant for a whole series of different applications. So we really leverage our development work applications. So the work we do on EVs is equally applicable to the work we do on drones. So we get a lot of bang for development spend. But in terms of customers, though, we're a small company, so we can only have a small number of strategic part. And so for us, it's been select those partners.

43:54 We can go wide and deep with over coming years. You've some traction in Japan. We've already announced it through TDK and and I think we oh, I think I think that we have chose wisely in the partners we have established to date. And I think going forward, I I you can expect that the company and the board will be looking for partners which are strategic in nature. Yep. Mine application or a quick we are a quick new thing. This is all about building long term long term shareholder value. Thank you. We've almost run out of time, but a couple of quick questions to finish with.

44:48 I'll put them together. I hope you don't mind. What's the duration of the CRADA agreement with NLR? And you mentioned on the way through that, Matt, working with EPC firms. Is is there a plan for you to work more closely with EPC firms? And will you own your manufacturing facilities? So two good questions. The first question, the duration of the creator is three years unless the two parties agree otherwise because we can get the work done quicker or we need more time or we choose that there's there's additional work we want to do. And so that's that's a simple one. On the EPC question, there's the number of angles to it. But, I mean, ultimately, for people to use the material that needs to be made.

45:44 The the great thing about that and the great thing about this material is that could come in a number of forms. It could be partners making the material on our behalf. It could be licensing technology to partners for them to make this material. It could be, you know, plants that are in joint venture. It could be make you know, building and operating plants under whatever ownership structure. And so the great thing is that this material, this business lends itself to different business models, and, you know, I list those in no in no specific order. The important thing is any of those cases, there's engineering work to be done. And so, you know, we have a process to make the material, and part of scale up is industrializing that process with existing, you know, large scale processes out in the world, and we will we will be finding We will be securing partners to to help us with that work.

46:44 How that's then deployed, you know, there are there are multiple ways that that can be done. John, anything you'd like to just say on that? You're nodding along. I you know, I think you and I No. But you the the all I would say, Matt, is you've just reinforced the reasons why I think you're the right person to come in and and resolve it. This is the next stage of of July and is about doing all the things that that matches went through. And that's his field of of experience and, you know, very confident that that that's that's where we'll be going, mate. We got we got it. You're very kind. Thanks. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you, John. Thank you, Matt. And thank you, Steve. I'll hand back to Alex. That's great. Thank you all very much indeed for addressing those questions investors today. But Steve, before we direct investors to provide you with their feedback, which is particularly important to yourself and the company, could I please just ask you for a few closing comments?

47:43 Thank you. I mean, first of all, this has been about the most professional handover between CEOs that I have ever experienced. So I think both John and Matt have done a fantastic job in the last month to make this as professional and seamless as possible. I think the board and myself are convinced we have found the right person at the helm in Matt, and so, Matt, welcome to the team. My closing remark would for John. John, through his 10 CEOs, always put the shareholders first, and his level of commitment and and diligence has been second to none. I think he's earned the right to wish you, John, and your wife, Jane, a long, healthy, and very happy retirement. So thank you.

48:39 Thank you so much, Steve. You're a champion, man. Thank you. That's great, guys. Thank you all once again for updating investors today. Could I please ask investors not to close this session as you now be automatically redirected to provide your feedback, which will help the company better understand your views and expectations. On behalf of the management team, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation, and good morning to you all.