Investors get to chew over merits of Revolymer

Confectionery gum maker Revolymer made its dbut on AIM on June 10th after successfully completing a placing of 25m ordinary shares.

The shares were placed with institutional shareholders at 100p each, raising £25m. Based on the placing price, the market capitalisation of the company at the time of flotation was therefore around £53m.

Proceeds from the placing will largely be used to expand the distribution of the firm's confectionery gum products in the USA and Europe, as well as to fund additional regulatory dossiers in connection with the commercialisation of nicotine gum. The group has also ear-marked some of the funds to developer what it calls "consumer specialities products".

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The major selling point of the company's gum seems to be that it is easily removable, which will please local authorities across the globe. Coffee and fags consumers might be interested to learn the company is planning to market nicotine and caffeine gum in the near future, while there are also plans to expand beyond the gum market into cosmetics, detergents, adhesives and personal care.

Revolymer was founded by Dr Roger Pettman and Professor Terence Cosgrove, initially to capitalise on technology developed at The University of Bristol.

Revolymer UK was incorporated as a limited company in 2005 and was assigned a family of patents from Bristol University relating to the Rev7 polymer technology.

Currently, Revolymer has a portfolio of 11 patent families, nine trade mark families and employs 34 people, of whom 23 are employed in product development roles and eight hold PhDs, each with an average of over 20 years' polymer experience.

JH