New twist on nuts and bolts
Author: Jeff Turnbull
Date: 25/01/2007
Publication: Herald Sun
Section: BusinessDaily
Page: 81
An Australian company that has turned nuts and bolts into a high-tech business is gearing up for rapid growth in the U.S. where its customers include airlines and car-makers.
Chicago-based TZ, which started life almost three years ago as an “ideas” group that intended to live off royalties, now finds itself as a manufacturer after some astute acquisitions.
TZ yesterday re-acquired exclusive rights to commercialise its intelligent fasteners with the acquisition of Intevia, a stand-alone business of U.S.-based Acument Global Technologies.
In return, TZ will hand Acument a 10 per cent stake in the form of 19.3 million ordinary shares.
TZ president Chris Kelliher, a former chief executive of Microsoft in Australia and New Zealand, said there had been a tremendous customer reaction to its invention of remotely controlled nuts and bolts.
They are being used in car engines and for securing first class and business class seats to the floor of planes as well as in car dashboards.
“The world has an insatiable appetite for remote controlled movement - from central locking in cars, to remote controls on TVs - just about every home appliance, even down to iPods,” Mr Kelliher said.
“When stimulated a certain way, such as passing energy through them or heating them, the nuts and bolts change their material properties and that produces a movement.”
He said TZ was not inventing a new way to hold things together, rather changing the way they can be physically manipulated.
“Traditional nuts and bolts have been very dumb objects and we are giving them intelligence,” Mr Kelliher said.
“Using this technology you can theoretically make cars shorter because you don’t have to worry about leaving space so a mechanic can get to bolts in the engines,” he said.
He said the market for the smart nuts and bolts could be worth up to $US250 million ($A316 million) within two to five years.
TZ, which has appointed former Acument business development chief as its new chief executive, is seeking a NASDAQ listing in the U.S.
While the business and 560 staff are based in the U.S., TZ’s board of directors remains in Australia. - AAP
