Gelion (LSE:GELN) — Full Year Results

0:03 Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the GELION Full Year Results Investor Presentation. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in listen only mode. Questions are encouraged and can be submitted at any time using the Q and A tab situated on the right hand corner of your screen. Please simply type in your questions at any time and press send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question received during the meeting itself. However, the company can review your questions submitted today, and we'll publish those responses where it's appropriate to do so. Before we begin, we'd like to submit the following poll, and I'm sure, as usual, the company would be most grateful for your participation. I'd now like to hand over to CEO,

0:34 John Wood. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you, everybody, for for being online to listen to us today. It's it's not the day we normally would have chosen, but, we had a bit a very big year. We had a lot coming into, the end of this year, and there was a lot of dates that needed to be lined up, and we got to today. I'm gonna take you through today's story about GELION's year, and results, and we'll be giving the results. But before we start, there's a few pictures on the screen in front of you here of, some of our team in action. And I know some of our team listening, so I just wanted to call out a big thank you to to the GELION team, magic, magic team, and also to, say thank you for my leadership team this year. Amit, we're gonna, hear from today.

1:20 Adrian, who joined us this year from, Oxford, now is the president of GELN UK and and Europe. Stuart, our ever energetic and and, and busy, commercial director, Louis, who, who joined us from Panasonic, this year. Nick Bat, our integration manager, my second dig with, with Nick, real champion. Emma, people, and culture. And, new boy on the block, Jake, who's, leading up our, recycling. Also, a call out to Michael, Gareth, Tom, and Alfonso doing absolute magic things in, in our tech group as well as the rest of tech team. Also, I would like to acknowledge my board.

2:07 Steve, a brilliant chairman. I really do appreciate, working with Steve. Always available, always with, some some wise words and and great judgment. Thomas, our creative hero, creative creativity input, spirit of the company. Joycelyn, the chair of our audit committee for her, financial acumen, and diligence in everything that she does. Michael Dadey, our remuneration chair for his, I guess, patience and support of me. And then also, the incoming director, Graham Cooley. Very excited to be to have the opportunity to work with Graham when we when we when he comes on board. A great mix of both technical under technical understand, commercial understanding, and investment market understanding as well. So very excited that Graham will be be joining us.

3:05 Okay.

3:07 Well, I'm John. I'm the CEO of GELN. I'm a serial entrepreneur. I like to think of myself as an art gallery manager. I work with talented people, and my job is to try to give them a environment that they can succeed in and very, honored and pleased to have the opportunity in GELION. Amit?

3:28 Hi, everyone. Good morning in The UK, and good evening to investors in Australia. My name is Amit Gupta. I'm the CFO of the business. I've been with GELION for over three years, and it's it's been a very interesting ride. We have achieved a lot, especially in the last twelve months, and we are very, very pleased to present this year's results, as well as all the developments that we have been working on.

3:55 Alright. Chawain, this is a sort of a summary slide to cover off where we are, where we're going. We work in the battery chemistry market. We work with next generation sulfur batteries. We are also building our integration solutions business. And then there's two businesses over here on the right, our zinc batteries and our recycling. Now I'm gonna context this for you. This is a bit of a shift, in GELION's, direction over time. We did start as a zinc bromide battery, company, with some lithium sulfur capabilities. Lithium sulfur simply is taking off as one of the most exciting, new battery chemistries, on the planet, and GELION is positioned very, very strongly, in that market.

4:49 We'll talk a little bit as we go through the presentation about the the why and the wherewithals of lithium sulfur, but, we are well placed, right time, right technology. You'll see alongside the lithium sulfur, we also are working in silicon sulfur. And silicon sulfur is a variant of the theme. Lithium sulfur, lithium metal sulfur giving the the very highest energy density. Silicon sulfur giving us a path to higher stability, higher cycle life applications. Our integration solutions business, we're really introducing that to you, this year. We had a lot of talented, people inside of GELN who are capable of of of putting the full solution together. There's a synergy between, lithium sulfur and silicon sulfur and integration, which is that many of the companies that we're working towards collaborating with around moving between lithium ion technology and introducing lithium sulfur technology, produce the cells that are utilized in the in the systems that we are buying, to take out into our integration solutions business. So there's a synergy in the partners that we're setting up between our our next generation sulfur batteries and our integration solutions.

6:02 On the right, you'll see that we've put the zinc and the recycling into incubation. Now what that really means is that in the fullness of time, you're gonna see the core business of, GELN focusing in on the sulfur business. These businesses on the right have a lot of value, and they're and they're really interesting businesses. But I have to start to focus my leadership team and my development team in particular areas. So what we wanna do is to try to extract value

6:27 from these businesses for our shareholders and for all of the input that the team has have been putting into that. So we'll be looking at spinning out and other actions connected with these businesses we put into in incubation.

6:46 Alright. This year was a huge year. We delivered on the milestones that we took to our shareholders. We did do a raise last year, and we told shareholders that we were gonna acquire Oxford. That transaction, is complete, and I'm very, very, pleased with the contribution that group has been making to July. Adrian, you're a superstar. Gareth, Magic, and the rest of the team out there have really been working, really well, through the transition. We worked with IronBlocks. We put in place a JDA to start working with the iron blocks, silicon anode technology and our own, sulfur cathode technology. We started to swap, our cathode materials, started to to shift electrodes around taking, anodes and trying it with our cathodes, sending cathodes for people to to work with.

7:40 With Louis on board, he brought with him, experience around, manufacturing simplicity. And so the team focused in on ways of of making our cathode, and we think it puts us in a pretty interesting competitive position where our cathodes are very low energy to produce and low low cost parts for manufacturing. So we're very pleased with that because we see sulfur as being a, abundant, chemistry. We put in place a, JDA with GELNCOR. Now this is an interesting, JDA. Under that JDA, we have been working with GELNCOR to identify opportunities, and then, the format of the JDA allows us to then introduce, engagement opportunities, where we see, commercial opportunities to work with GELNCOR. So we're in the phase at the moment of still exploring, understanding, and working towards, some of these engagement opportunities.

8:39 We we, delivered cost efficiencies. So in the middle of all of this, activity, we cut 1,500,000 out of our operating expense base. We added about 410,000 back in when we acquired Oxford. So we we achieved more with this. We also have just been awarded the co funding for our ACPC. This is really important about us. There's a a slide I'll talk to you about what the ACPC project is a little bit later. But it allows us to start to manufacture the commercial prototypes that we supply to the supply chain as we put our collaboration partners in place as we as we establish our supply chain.

9:29 This grant was, awarded to us by Arena. It's a £2,500,000 grant, and the grant will commence, when we, bring on board, appropriate co funding, to match, the grant from the government. And over and above last year, our team hit a remarkable milestone with their gen three technology, and I'll introduce gen three a little bit as we go along. But with our gen three technology, we hit more than 400 watt hours per kilogram, which was the primary benchmark on on energy we were looking for. Our recycling group managed to awarded a £170 thousand £170,000 grant by the UK government to do the techno commercial development of the business model and business plan for that technology, and I'll I'll talk about that a little later in the presentation.

10:29 And our integration group managed to secure their first order, and we're shipping that or preparing that to ship at the moment. And that was a £1,000,000 order for that group, which is developing a a nice looking order book. Ahmed, would you go through the results? Yeah. Thank you, John. So what we have done on this slide and John spoke about the cost efficiencies in all the milestones that we've delivered in the last twelve, fourteen months. So what you see on this slide is our f y twenty four audit results. And when you compare it to f y twenty three, you can see our adjusted EBITDA loss decreasing by £1,100,000. Hold that thought because I'll explain when John spoke about 1,500,000, how does that reconcile? So on the face of the p and l, you'll see there's a 1,100,000 decline in adjusted EBITDA loss, which is 18.8% lower than prior year and 13% lower than what the analysts were forecasting.

11:27 So fantastic year from the milestones, commercial, technological progress while decreasing cost. We are running a much, much leaner team. We are running much focused, r and d programs to deliver more from the capital that we already have. Our cash position at June 30 was 3,800,000, in in in bank. That is $1.61700000 higher than what was the forecast. So, again, all the cost efficiencies are resulting in additional cash, and we had 1,600,000 of r and d tax incentive that was claimable in June, but that claim has been processed in November. So we have got that cash from those trading government. On on this slide, what we have done is we have explained where the cost efficiencies are coming from, the larger cost buckets of the business, and how we have been able to decrease our cost across all the buckets of the business. So the first chart is about the r and d expenses.

12:21 And why I have presented '22, '23, and '24 is f y twenty two was the first year when we listed, so not really a normal year because a lot lot of costs were go going, and we were incurring more cost as we became a listed entity. F y twenty three, therefore, is kind of the benchmark of a full year listed business and operating cost as well. So when you look at r and d expenses, when you look at employee expenses, and when you look at business expenses as well, We have been able to bring cost down across all categories. What I've also shown on this chart is there's a stacked bar for f y twenty four, which reflects the contribution for Oxlade. So we acquired Oxlade in November 2023. And for the seven months into the financial year, we were, incurring additional cost as we acquired that business.

13:07 If you take Oxlid out and you do a comparison of a like for like business, what we had when we announced the cost savings program in June, July, Oxlid was nowhere in the picture, and we estimated the annual cost savings to be £1,000,000. When you do a like for like comparison, we saved over £1,500,000 in f y twenty four. However, as John mentioned and as everyone is aware, we acquired Oxlid, and we spent around the 400 k. So the net cost is 1.1, but, actually, we delivered 1,500,000 on a like for like basis. All these cost savings, running a lean business, running a really focused program, saving as much cash as possible, what does it help us with? We are able to make strategic direct, strategic decisions. We can acquire businesses. We acquired an IP portfolio last year in March from Johnson Matthey.

13:54 It's, IP is key for us. It's absolutely fundamental to maintain that portfolio. It is not cheap. It's expensive. So we are able to save these cost, savings and then invest back into the IP, which is absolutely fundamental for us to reach development and commercialization. John, back to you. Alright. Lithium sulfur. Why lithium sulfur? Lithium sulfur is it has two great features about it. We've got a whole lot of benefits, but the two great features about being a lithium sulfur business is that, first of all, it's a strategic technology. So it's a lighter it's a lightest technology. You can get lighter by making a a a lithium air battery, essentially, when we talk about high gravimetric energy density, things like 400 watt hours per kilogram, What we're talking about is it it being the lightest battery. And, you know, there's a whole lot of applications where it is really important to be the lightest battery.

14:56 Things that fly fly further. It will be starting to enable e aviation. There's a whole lot of important high value applications that come off the fact that this technology is the lightest. But that's just sort of the first feature of sulfur because sulfur is, is an abundant, technology. It has a a lower, path to a lower, manufacturing CapEx and OpEx. It's very safe technology. If it's if it's designed and manufactured the right way, then you end up with a tremendously, safe cell. And as I said, it's abundant, and it doesn't use, rare, metals. It doesn't use, expensive metals. It's a it's a metal free cathode.

15:44 And the production of that cathode material has a very significant, lowering of the carbon footprint. So we see a wise person says, you know, old batteries never go anywhere. They just new batteries come along and and and create new markets. And this will be the same as well. Lithium sulfur won't displace lithium ion, but lithium sulfur will build on top of, what lithium ion is is, is achieving today. And we're, blessed to be working in this, technology at this point in time, when it's moving so quickly. We have a very large, IP portfolio. Now we could we picked up this IP portfolio, courtesy of the acquisition from Johnson Matthey.

16:30 But its origin was that it was the IP portfolio created, by a group of developers, inside Oxus. And Oxus was really a leader, in lithium sulfur technology, pioneer creating the, the technology. And, they moved through all the TRL stages to to make, lithium ion cells. And as such, their IP portfolio covers various aspects of the anode, the cathode, the electrolyte, BMS, the battery management systems, and packaging and such. We're very fortunate to pick up that that portfolio from Johnson Matthey when Johnson Matthey decided to get out of battery technologies altogether.

17:17 It puts us in a in a in a nice position. There are other large IP portfolios out there. LG is a strong advocate of lithium sulfur and is moving into the commercialization of of lithium sulfur. We're pretty happy about that because we see LG as a very important market maker in introducing this technology. And of course, there

17:41 is a very large company in the in the sector in The US called Life and a very professional company doing a great job. And that company has a significant, IP portfolio as well, and I'm sure there there are other portfolios around. But GELION has a a credible portfolio in that in that footprint. Lighten is is taking a a different path, and is is going to be investing a billion dollars to create a lithium sulfur gigafactory. So once again, I think you see with with companies like LG starting to introduce lithium sulfony towards commercialization of lithium sulfur and companies like Lighten making those, large, investment decisions. So this is an this is an important time to have a strong, position in lithium sulfur, and that's what GELLINE is working to do. What we're working to do differently, though, is that we're working to do this on a capital light path.

18:41 So the theory goes something like this. If LG does the heavy lifting to to create the market as a LG is is just a brilliant battery company. It does lithium ion of of all kinds, a real tech leader. If they're out there creating the market and and Lighten is is also working to create the the market through this billion dollars into a Gigafactory, then we believe there's an opportunity by focusing on our IP and investing in our IP, investing in the performance of our technology that we can establish ourselves as a leader in in by using a materials and licensing model. We will be making cells, but those cells will be in small quantity of high value cells that will get out to supply chains or or toll manufacture.

19:32 But we see we see sulfur as being a fairly ubiquitous new chemistry, and we wanna be the company that unlocks it, by providing our IP portfolio and our capabilities into, into the broader market. And one really important step towards doing that, we've just announced, was our advanced commercial prototyping center. We are so happy to have this facility. A lot of my team worked on it. I'll call out Stu, and Louie and and and Emmett, who engaged, and I'll even say hi to Deloitte who did some work in the in the background on this one as as well as our adviser, and did a absolutely fantastic job.

20:17 And a big thank you to Arena, who worked this through with us. This was it took us nine months, I think, to, move through the through the process to get this, this project approved, and that was subject to the diligence that, we had to work on, with Arena, to be awarded the awarded this, this grant opportunity. That process made it a better, made it a better project. So, very, beholding to, the government. They are not just for the award of the funding, but also for the the hurdles that they put in front of us, that just simply made us better each step. We had to do, independent, third party, evaluations. We got letters of support from leaders in The US. We got letters of support from leaders, in The UK.

21:07 And we got, letters of support from all sorts of, companies that that worked in the applications that we were targeting. So aerospace and and defense, heavy vehicle, and stationary storage, and EV. So this this is a really, really important project for GELN. So we'll actually be doing a it's a £5,000,000 project, £2,500,000 of funding from the Australian government. And our next goal and objective is to secure strategic partner who's gonna come along with us on that journey. The grant does include some of our current operating costs in meaning that some of our team will be shifting into this project, which makes it as Amit is always on my shoulder, working on the financial, financial responsibilities and getting our cost down makes it a very cost effective project for July as well.

22:16 Alright. So as I mentioned, we are envisioning a a scale up pathway, which is cap capital light. So what does that mean? You'll see a progression in products that we release, in our lithium sulfur work. At first, we're aiming at those applications that are very high value where we get a lot of money for the cells, good margin, but low volume. And they have particular characteristics that are needed out of the cell. Basically, they need to sell to be really light, and to, handle a modest, number of cycles. They don't need a lot of power. The excitement starts to happen, when we introduce, power alongside cycle life and that create energy density because then, you start to have a very competitive battery, for UAVs.

23:09 All these things that, that fly around now, the lightest battery, high performance. And then we see, around 2028 that this becomes

23:19 mass market product now. I know you're looking at that and saying, wow. 2028, that's a long time away before the big j curve hits. But when you work in batteries, one important thing to to note is it's generally around well, the automobile guys are working on a ten year, time frame, and most everybody else is working on a five year time frame. So the important time to be an innovation technology company is where your products are coming to market in that five to ten year time frame. And GELION is, as I said, we've sort of joined in the fast lane by doing our acquisition of the OXIS technology, and that's why I'm calling it out as right time, right technology in the marketplace today.

24:05 And so the next step now, we've just put in place the ACPC grant. What that ACPC

24:12 allows us to do in that factory, in that small facility, we will be producing 2,000 cells a year, just 2,000. But those 2,000 cells will be very much like the cells that would come out of Gigafactories. And those cells will be going to the end users. Those cells will be going to the battery manufacturers. Those cells will be going to the material suppliers that we will be, partnering with us, and they'll be going to the application, people at the end of the whole stream. So we'll be seeding the supply chain, with our ACPC. And, our next job now is to, bring on board, partners, who will be helping us, on that journey. Alright. To go and achieve that, we have been, traveling quite intensively.

25:02 GELION is a international battery group. One thing to factor in about batteries,

25:09 you gotta be the best in the world to be relevant in the industry because it is a global business. There is no value, in sort of being geographically, unique in a battery chemistry. You must have your battery chemistry, important

25:26 to the industry, and you work you must work with the partners who are important to the industry. And GELION is blessed in that we've got off to a great start, in our work to embed ourselves in the global networks. First, I'll call out Adrian. Adrian, you're getting a few callouts today. He's done a a a really great job up in in Europe of, embedding us into, into the industry up in Europe. Very grateful for the way that he's, he's been engaging there. Meanwhile, we've also been working strongly in Asia, in India, which is, many people are calling the next China, and in The Middle East, and in The US. Now China is, China is interesting because China makes about 85% of the batteries in the world today.

26:14 And so, there's a an interesting, ecosystem out there where, people in The US are trying to start to, try to incent an alternative supply base. In the meantime, people, in Asia, Southeast Asia, Japan, and Korea, are managing to, get the best of all worlds by protecting their IP and using the utilizing the, manufacturing capabilities in China. And now there's also a big move as well, to unlock, the latent potential of India. And if you go to India at the moment, you'll find a lot of excitement around the fact that there's a whole lot of gigafactories, that are starting to be developed. So, for the investors online, your company, GELINE, is well represented in that in that process.

27:07 We're working very hard, to embed ourselves into the global landscape. Wanted to talk about the technologies that we're incubating a little. Now, first, I'll go to the recycling, technology. And we have a very exciting set of recycling patents in IP. More exciting though is the energy, that young Jake's been bringing to this exercise and the work that's been going on in the in The UK with with the government there to, understand exactly where this business fits. I think there's been a great job done here. We know, where we fit in the recycling world. To keep it simple, we extract lithium from black mass really effectively, and, we've got some strong IP in that area that we picked up from, Johnson Johnson.

28:02 So our intent is to, spin that out to valuable consideration for our shareholders, and that could take many forms. But the intent is that, this will take a path where it will, have certain independence while we'll be retaining value for our shareholders, and that will allow me to be focusing, the core leadership team, in, GELION, squarely on our growth in software technologies. Now when we go to, zinc, our zinc team has been doing a a absolutely awesome job, advancing our zinc technology. Originally, we were a zinc bromine technology. We've shifted. We've become user a a zinc hybrid technology, on the on the cathode side, benign and, starting to become very very

28:58 stable. So very impressed with what our team has been doing here. The the challenge on zinc is that, we are developing this technology in parallel, with the development of the sulfur technology. And, in the company, I need to allocate, each dollar of resource that we have available, where it's gonna get the greatest gain for our shareholders. So while this is a very exciting technology and the team is doing great goals, the lithium sulfur is a, extraordinary technology. And so, we've been focusing, our attention, towards, more towards the lithium sulfur technology, and, incubating this technology along. Looking to our summary and our outlook.

29:44 Whatever way you look at it, we're sitting here at December 27, and it wasn't because we're trying to hide something. It's because we've been really busy. It's been a it's been a huge year. This is the on your on the board there, on the on the left, you've got a little summary. We went out there ambitiously at the start of this year and said, you know what? We're gonna achieve all these goals. Well, we did. We got those goals, and then we got a bunch more. It wasn't me. It was our team. I got a call call out all the players in July and put their head down. There's a lot of negotiations in there. There's a lot of technical work in there. There's a lot of leadership in there, and there's a lot of governance in there. And every aspect of the team, has been extraordinary. I can tell you that, Anna, who's on the screen with me, his typical day was probably about twelve to fourteen hours for the last three months while we crushed through a lot of this stuff.

30:37 It's it's been a big effort to deliver on all of those goals. Looking forward, we're not slowing down. We're gonna keep pushing the pace. So in the short, medium term, we're gonna progress our lithium sulfur towards what we call our MVP, minimum minimum viable performance. So when you got your minimum viable performance, then you can start doing your minimum viable product. And so that'll be, fueling our work on our collaborations. We will execute, on our plan towards strategic planning strategic, collaborations, partnerships, and funding. We will, double the sales of our integration business. I think, I don't know, hollow log is, I think, an Australian term or a US term where you put the the acorns in your in your hollow log. But I think we've got a little bit of room there that our team, I've got confidence in there, might have room for outperformance.

31:34 Also, we'll continue to incubate the zinc and the recycling, and we'll continue to maintain our our prudent cost management. So another big year coming up for July. We've just closed it out, of course, with the announcement of the ACPC, the advice of the round that we just closed, and that we're onboarding, Graham Cooley. So all of our 2025 goals are aimed at delivering shareholder value and growth. And thank you all for allowing me or supporting me in the role as your CEO. John John, Amit, thank you very much indeed for updating investors. Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions. Just using the Q and A tab situated on the right hand corner of your screen, which is why John and Amit take a few moments to review your questions submitted already. I'd just like to remind you the recording of this presentation along with a copy of the slides and the published Q and A will be accessible via your Investor Meet company dashboard.

32:32 John, you've received a number of questions throughout your presentation, so thank you to everybody for your engagement. If I may just hand back to you, John, just to moderate through that q and a, and I'll pick up from you at the end. Outstanding. Alright. Here we go, guys. I'll try to get through all of the questions for you and answer them as clearly as I can. The first one is, how how close are you to surviving a strategic partner in any of our IP? And if not, what are the barriers? Well, that's a really good question. There are, three things that I think about when I'm trying to do a strategic partnership and a collaboration. One, respect, trust, and having something that the partner really wants. So we're well positioned with all three of those. Respect and trust require confidentiality, so I can't go into any details about what we're doing for our partners. I can only answer the question qualitatively, and I guess the question was how close are you, and I would say close.

33:24 Next question. When is commercialization of each type of GELN produced battery likely to occur, and when will income be seen? We're actually delivering income now, in our integration business, and I expect that income to, continue to grow. As, Emmett and I presented, although we're we're we're stewarding a growth company, we're also stewarding our costs and have been reducing our costs. Now one of the benefits of having an integration business is we're starting to grow income as well. And so we're trying to work on both sides of of the curve there to reduce any losses that we've been making. So and when is commercialization of each type of GELION produced battery? I did I would refer back to the lithium sulfur time frames that I had in the presentation, integration business now, and the zinc I'll take on notice because we've still got more development we're doing on zinc.

34:30 What is the current cash runway, and when will the company need to raise further, equity capital? So, on our current budget cash runway, is just north of the next half, the end of next half. We will be raising more capital. Our intention is that with the ACPC, with the approval of that grant, we will utilize that grant. The intention is to utilize that grant to bring in match funding from a strategic corporate source that we've been having progressive discussions with, across the supply chain. So we will be raising again. But as, I said, we're starting to reduce, the cost of our business both by reducing costs and, increasing income. Would GELION be developing a non flow zinc bromine flow battery as invented by a brilliant, professor at City University?

35:22 Well, the brilliant part is right. Professor Thomas Machmeyer, one of the, leading, chemists on the planet, I think number 15, by the by the, algorithm, as, Thomas tells me that was set by his mom. But, Thomas is certainly brilliant. We will not be delivering a non flow zinc bromine, battery, but Thomas is active and contributes to every part, of our business and inspires me every day. He well, I cannot tell you, about it on this call. I can tell you that Thomas, the last two months, has made one of the most important contributions that I think he could have made to, July and then opened the door to, something significant for our future. So, certainly, the, the brilliant Tom, professor Thomas is correct.

36:17 What is the minimum and maximum threshold from investors outside of Australia in UK who are interested in GELN PLC portfolio? Well, no minimum, no maximum threshold. We are listed on AIM. So any investor who wants to invest is willing is welcome to do in visit to invest on AIM. But if you're a corporate strategic investor who sees a future in being with GELN in a large scale, well, come and talk to Amit and I anytime. So I don't know that there's any threshold of of minimum or maximum. When you eventually make this is a long question. It says, when you eventually make batteries to the home storage market, will its battery management system have a large list of internal types?

37:04 This will increase the desirability. Yeah. I understand that. It's true. So to answer it as directly as I can, we are aiming to intersect the bulk of the market. That means we wanna be supplying sulfur cathode materials and licensing the really big manufacturers. Now those big manufacturers are gonna supply cells, and those cells are gonna use battery management systems. When we acquired OXIS, the OXIS IP from Johnson and Nephew, we did get a bunch of battery management IP, but what we'd like to do is is leverage that to maximize the the number of of cells that go out to market. So I guess my short answer to the long question is yes. It would be our intention that we would support the whole range of of inverters.

37:58 From the Financial Times, US startup Lighting is committing more than 1,000,000,000 to, well, build the world's first, large scale factory to produce lithium sulfur batteries, an emerging technology that could break US dependence on China for metals crucial to the energy transition. The factory located in Reno, Nevada is expected to start production by 2027. In article, the technology officer at Leiden refers to the polysulfide shuttle as a Gordian knot to be solved. Does this represent a commercial opportunity for GELN to, grant a license or a partner with Lighting? That's a really thoughtful question. I like the Gordian knot bit.

38:45 Was it William the Conqueror? He just rode up and cut it with a knot with a sword. I'm sorry. I don't get that one. I might might not have got that right, but I remember the Gordian knot and that somebody cut right through it. There's a nice analogy there. So what was said there that the polysulfide shuttle is a Gordian knot to be solved polysulfide shuttle is this sort of weird thing where sulfur is solid in the cathode, but then it turns to a liquid and a solid again, and then the and and in that liquid form, it's a polysulfide that can travel in the battery. And when we did our announcement about phase gen three batteries, it was about implementing a technology that had been developed inside OXS where they used what's called a low polysulfide soluble electrolyte to stop the polysulfides shuttling and forced what they is described as a solid to solid conversion.

39:43 And, hopefully, that's a sword that cuts the Gordian knot. And so solving that problem unlocks the full potential of sulfur as a cathode material. And it is really hard to explain just how relevant and important that is to the energy transition generally and batteries generally. So the IP that we're working in, is really important. So the answer to this question the direct answer to this question is, you know, maybe. But, at this point in time, rather than us seeing as as a technology a license to go that way, we would see that the best path for us with the technology that we have and the IP that we have is to unlock the potential of a lithium ion industry to utilize lithium sulfur in the future.

40:38 What is the life cycle on your battery on your gen free battery? Increasing by the day is the short answer. So what we did was we came out, first of all, and we said, you know what? We've done 400 watt hours per kilogram with the gen two battery. And then we paused, and we did 400 watt hours per kilogram with the gen three battery. And then with that gen three battery, what we're now doing is increasing our our cycle cost our cycle count, systematically. Let me say that I think that with the gen three cells, once we get to about 400 watt hours per kilogram and we've got to say a 150 cycles, then at that point in time, we've hit what we call out a minimum performance minimum viable performance.

41:32 You're providing a very dynamic environment with lots of positive update. However, I feel frustrated by investment. I'm not seeing any positive share price growth. I am sorry. The company keeps switching tax, so it makes it impossible for an investor to predict the future. When I can expect to get into positive price territory. If I have my way tomorrow, look, I think that the company is doing, everything that it can, to to make that turn. I share your frustration, in this in this comment. When I look at what the team what the giant team achieved last year, it's really hard to come to grips with the fact that the value of the company on the stock market was lower at the end of the year than it was at the start. So we are providing a dynamic. I I admit that. I am frustrated as well that we haven't seen positive share price growth yet.

42:26 We have I have changed tech. I take that as take that on board. I think we've got the company set on the right tech. I think we're doing the right things. We've got a great team. We got a head down. We're working in a hard environment. It's pretty tough out there in batteries right now. We're not complaining about that. We're gonna try and get on there and deliver and try to get you into profit, positive price territory. How is r and d cost management impacting innovation? It does, do that, but I can tell you that we have well, we have a modest team. We have a modest team doing research in Australia and a modest team doing research in The UK. I will back them in their leadership.

43:14 I think I think we've got an exciting team. So we're we're we're doing what we can with what we've got, and I'm not asking for more right now. I think we're doing a good job. John, if if I can, John, if I can add that response as well. So when I was taking everyone through the slides, the financial slides, and walking everyone through the reduction in cost, so r and d expenses have come down, but it's not at the cost of innovation. What we have changed, is the thought process and how we approach r and d in the business. We are becoming more and more commercial, and we are running more focused r and d programs. I'll give an example. When we as John was talking about 400 watt hour per kilogram, gen two, and then we stopped, gen three, and then we stopped, we could have gone and potentially and I'm just I don't know. I haven't spoken to the team, but we could have gone and continued to work on increasing that energy density to four fifty, maybe 500.

44:08 But we didn't want to do that. We started working on the cycle life because getting a product to a commercial, commercial product is more important than trying to just work on an r and d program and increase the energy density. And hence, by running these very, focused programs, running a lean team, and John spoke about the structure of the business as well where we are we are incubating a couple of businesses, and we are really focusing on a couple of businesses. And that helps to bring the cost down, but not necessarily at the cost of innovation. Thanks, Evan. When will you publish performance characteristics for the lithium sulfur cell? We now can appraise 400 watt hours per kilogram. I'd like to hear specifically cycle life expectation, charge rates, RTE degradation profile. Also, it's possibly interesting to hear how your separator technology is compared to the ceramic solution by QuantumScape.

44:58 So, we've only, at this stage, published our watt hours per kilogram, which is correct. I'm giving you some guidance in saying that we would anticipate MVP or minimum viable performance at around a 150 cycles. 150 cycles are not enough for a car, of course. It'd be 600 to a thousand for a car, but but that's in our technology, as we advance. Your question about QuantumScape, in the ceramic solution is, really, interesting. I can't give too much away. What we're working on at the moment, and what we've announced results about are what we call a semi solid state or a quasi solid state or a pseudo solid state. So it's all utilizing our our, low polysulfide soluble electrolyte.

45:50 We have, other significant developments underway as well, in the innovation. And the case can be put that GELION's work, will transfer, into a, full solid state solution in the future as well. But I can't I can't go too far on that path. Mean, what I can tell you is that when we acquired Oxlid, one of the requirements that we had before we did the acquisition was that we also were able to access by license some technology from, Oxford It was for a very thin solid state separator that or manufacturing technique for for that, which is turning out to be very important for us.

46:35 Sorry that I've ducked that question a little bit. We will progressively be adding more in terms of our performance. Given the cost moves in financial year '24, do you see r and d cost and admin cost is similar in financial year, '25 where you see further changes in the cost base? We will be controlling costs. Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. I I was gonna say the same thing, John, that we we we continue to look at our cost base. We continue to manage our cost base, and I will be very surprised if it's significantly different, but we continue to manage our cost as efficiently as possible. The next question was, are there any key areas your people follow that are missing from what LG or Lighten have?

47:22 You know, as an industry evolves, you'll always find this that you end up with the companies that, persist or survive or grow, as having IP portfolios that overlap with other companies as well. And you end up with a few companies that control meaningful IP portfolios. So, yeah, I would believe there are parts of our IP portfolio that that they would have and there's probably parts that we have that they don't have, but they're relevant, portfolios. So, you know, I can only give a real world answer to that. I don't wanna overclaim anything. On your initial 400 watt hours per kilogram density, what sort of range or flight time would be achieved for a UAV? The short answer to that question is that with our first test, we had low power.

48:16 So UAVs use maybe a third of their battery on takeoff, and they do it at high power, and then they use quite a bit on landing as well. So our very first result wouldn't have been good at UAV. The first the first one was a low low power device. As we progress out the power capabilities of device, then, you know, the the the question that you're you're asking I guess the only answer I can give it answering is completely other can is probably twice as far or or 1.5 times as far as, the UAV would do without the lithium sulfur battery. It it's it's not something you can quantify in in kilometers. Does Licella collaborate with the recycling division?

49:02 No. Not at this point in time. There's no link between my seller and the recycling division at this point in time. What about the zinc technology made you decide to incubate it, and what does incubating mean in this context? The zinc technology, as I said, it's a great technology, and it seems to have a great work on it. So I don't want to knock this technology at all. All I'm saying on the zinc technology is that I think it's I think it's a great technology. But if we're gonna be if we're gonna be a leader in a technology, we have to focus on that technology, and we have to focus our our resources. And similarly, if our zinc effort and our recycling effort want to be the best in class, then those efforts have to focus as well.

49:57 And so when I talk about incubating, what I'm really doing is I talk about trying to get things to a state where they can justify their independent existence, and that I can put them on a course of that independent existence where they're able to focus a 100% just one technology, Just like the lithium sulfur, we'll be able to focus a 100% on that technology. And I think that in GELION's case, it is time for us to start to develop that focus, in our, organization because you really can't pretend that you can be best in the world, if you're sort of, not using all your resources, in that in that direction. And the lithium sulfur has become such a, exciting push for us.

50:55 And as I said, it complements what we're doing, with our integration services because we are managing to, forge these relationships where we have, multiple points of interaction, with the same, industry participants, which from my history, I've always found to be an effective way to grow a company successfully. I think we came to the end of our official questions. John, if I may just jump in. You have taken every question from investors. So thank you very much indeed to everybody for your engagement once again. John, Amit, I know investor feedback is important to you. I'll shortly redirect those on the call to give you their thoughts and expectations. But perhaps before we go, John, a few closing comments from your good self.

51:42 Oh, look. Thanks, everyone. Look. It's exciting to be, leading GELION. This is such an important time, on the planet, and that creates so much commercial opportunity. You know, you can feel good about your investment in GELION, and its potential to make a difference, in the energy transition. You're investing to make money, though, and I'm here to steward that and certainly, Amit as well and our board to make money for you. We know that's our job. But you can also feel good about the fact that as we're making money for you and as we turn that corner and as we start to, generate, wealth and start to move the needle on the price for, our shareholders, that you're also gonna be part of something that's really important. And I know all of our team, get up and come to the office knowing that that's the case, as well. So thank you for giving you giving me this, this opportunity, and you, I guess the only thing I do is you know that we're gonna be doing our best at every step of the way, to, deliver success for you, for what you've entrusted to us. Thank you.

52:49 That's great. John, Amit, thank you once again for updating investors. If I could please ask investors not to close this session as we're now automatically redirect you for the opportunity to provide your feedback in order the company can better understand your views and expectations. This will only take a few moments to complete, but I'm sure we're greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team at GELN, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation. Wish you all a good rest of your day.