Accoya modified wood will be made in China, if investment can be raised, and manufacturer Accsys Technologies has further, long-term international expansion plans, according to an article in the Sunday Telegraph.
The report, based on an interview with chief executive Paul Clegg, said that Asian Accoya distributor Diamond Wood, is aiming to raise money in Malaysia to build the manufacturing plant in China.
Mr Clegg said the move was part of a five-year plan to grow the business. Accsys, he said, was also talking to a “large European chemicals company” about licensing the aceytylisation process used to make Accoya.
Since his arrival at the business in 2009, Mr Clegg, brother of Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg and a former investment banker, has raised £45m to develop Accsys, which is Aim and Euronext listed.
But he acknowledged that the wood industry adopted new products only slowly and that the recession, which has seen Accsys market valuation drop from £600m in 2007 to £32m, had made businesses even more cautious.
“We’re trying to deploy a new technology and create new product that will have to replace existing products. There has to be a lot of ground-breaking and we have to convince through performance that they are better than other products out there,” he said. “People [also] become very defensive and conservative in approach in recessions, but once they are willing to use Accoya we find they very quickly replace what they were using before.”
He said this year’s launch of Medite Tricoya MDF, based on acetylated fibre from Accsys, was an important advance for the business.
“It basically shows we have a platform technology. We can acetylate fibre as well as solid wood.”
