KEY POINTS:
Carter Holt Harvey, controlled by billionaire entrepreneur Graeme Hart, is rumoured to be assessing Accsys Technologies Plc, listed on the London Aim market.
Mr Hart would be looking to repatriate technology developed in New Zealand but sold to the British company in September that allows softwoods like radiata pine to be transformed into having hardwood properties.
The technology could greatly enhance Carter Holt's remaining forest estate and its wood processing assets.
Accsys, with a market capitalisation of £200 million ($580 million), last month bought the technology developed by Rotorua Crown Research Institute Scion.
Accsys's Titan Woods bought Scion Acetylation Technology for an undisclosed sum and is on track to shortly begin commercial production of its branded acetylated wood Accoya in Arnhem in the Netherlands.
Titan has set up a large scale pilot plant and is about to scale up to full commercial production.
Wood acetylation is a process which increases the amount of acetyl molecules in wood, modifying its physical properties. The process protects wood from rot by making it inedible to most micro-organisms and insects but without making it toxic, unlike conventional treatments. In the United States and much of Europe, Chromated Copper Arsenate products have been banned.
The process also reduces shrinking and swelling, making the wood less prone to cracking.
Accsys executive chairman William Paterson-Brown said in a recent interview that traditional ways of treating wood were becoming environmentally unacceptable and the Accoya product would become the gold standard within the wood industry.
It required so little maintenance that one company Dutch company Akzo Noble, whose resins division was recently bought by New Zealand's Nuplex, guarantees its paint for up to 30 years on Accoya products.
Mr Paterson-Brown said the Arnhem plant was moving to profitability well ahead of schedule.
Titan was focused on the top end of the US$100 billion wood products market, he said.
Accsys was looking to licence Accoya around the world. He said the company was looking to partner some of the largest wood companies in the world.
Earlier, this month Carter Holt sold the bulk of its forests to Hancock Natural Resource Group, the world's largest specialist manager of forest investments, for a rumoured billion dollar plus price.
Mr Hart bought Carter Holt Harvey, New Zealand's largest forestry company, for $3.3 billion last year.
- NZPA
