Grafoid has announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Xiamen Tungsten of Xiamen, China, for the establishment of a strategic joint venture partnership. The agreement establishes terms for Xiamen's acquisition of up to a 20% equity position in Grafoid through the purchase of common shares - including Grafoid common shares currently held by Grafoid's affiliate, Focus Graphite, an advanced Canadian graphite mining exploration and development company.
Focus Graphite currently holds 7.9 million Grafoid shares, and according to the MOU Xiamen can purchase up to 7 million shares from Grafoid. Seems like Focus Graphite does not want to remain a major shareholder in Grafoid - although the two companies are still linked by a 10-year offtake agreement.
The agreement also specifies additional points of interests, such as Xiamen's aim to build a clean energy technology platform and introduce those technologies to the China market, Grafoid's goals for developing industrial applications to open the China market for the commercialization of its suite of Mesograf and Amphioxide graphene based products, The fulfillment of Focus Graphite's desire to move forward with the development of the company's Lac Knife, Quebec graphite project, and supply global markets with high purity, value-added, cost-competitive products while supporting the next generation battery development platform of Grafoid, Focus Graphite, Stria Lithium Inc., and Braille Battery, The establishment of Xiamen's business office at the Grafoid Global Technology Center in Kingston, Ontario to provide Xiamen with a North American base for future business expansion, and the establishment of a Grafoid business office in China.
The parties have further agreed to jointly develop graphene applications for the China market. They include, but are not limited to: Next generation lithium-ion batteries (for EVs and energy storage), Graphene coatings (solar panels and glass, silicone, mylar, copper, aluminum and other materials), Graphene enhanced polymers (for the automotive and aerospace sectors), Water treatment (purification and desalination), Intelligent fibers and Tungsten/graphene alloy.
Management of the joint venture will be guided by a Strategy Committee meeting alternately in Canada and China on a quarterly basis and, a China-based Operations Committee co-chaired by a Grafoid senior manager and a Xiamen senior manager. The funding method is to be determined through negotiations for both the JV and application development components. Those applications could be spun out as JVs and eventual IPOs.