Wool sector's new-look company has eye on Mars

Agricultural science and biotech company Wool Equities today launched its prospectus in Wellington with news that it has an interest in a Mars landing.

Wool Equities' chairman Richard Bentley said a high-tech textile, Softswitch, one of its ventures is producing with a British company, is being assessed by a NASA supplier for use in space suits to be worn on Mars.

"It demonstrates the fairly sophisticated nature of the Softswitch products, and the scope of possibilities," he said. "There's a company working with NASA which is working on incorporating Softswitch technology ".

The technology has already been used in Britain by Burton Snowboards to produce a ski jacket with a mini-disk personal stereo built into it, controlled by buttons printed on the sleeve.

Canesis, the commercial evolution of 40 years of investment in the Wool Research Organisation of New Zealand, is 34 per cent owned by Wool Equities, and 66 per cent by Wool Research.

An incorporated society, Wool Research of New Zealand continues to own its buildings and property and the Canesis stake.

Wool Equities also owns 67 per cent of a technology start-up, Keratec, with the remainder owned by Canesis. Keratec plans to start marketing keratin proteins to a New Zealand cosmetics company next year.

Wool Equities also owns the other commercial assets of the Wool Board: stakes in genetic research company Ovita Ltd and its associated commercialised arm Covita Ltd, and Tectra Ltd, effectively the old Woolpro/Meat and Wool Innovation.

Wool Equities will hold redistributed assets from the deregulated Wool Board, in which 12,130 farmers will automatically receive Wool Equities shares, including an allocation which can be exchanged for cash.

The total allocation in their initial entitlement and the additional share offer will be $22,852,000 in the form of $1 shares.

- NZPA