Beat Chrysos to partial rebound on $109 million in contracts

The news of the new deals partially restored some of the company’s value, with Chrysos shares climbing 11% to $4.80 as of 11:30 a.m. AEST Monday on the ASX. But the shares are still far from the issue price of $6.50.

Chrysos ran headlong in tough market conditions as noted, with global markets jittery about interest rate hikes as central banks scrambled to tackle inflation, and investors singled out related companies to technology with “blue skies” and no net short-term benefits.

Chrysos raised $183.5 million in capital at $6.50 per share, giving it an indicative market capitalization of $637 million ahead of its IPO.

Chrysos takes its name from the Greek word for gold. Chrysos’ biggest shareholder is Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO, which developed the technology and then spent 15 years bringing it to market. It owns 22% of Chrysos.

The Chrysos process uses high-powered X-rays to bombard rock samples and activate atoms of gold and other metals. A detector can determine their concentrations in minutes.

As part of the traditional gold mining testing process, samples are sent to a laboratory and heated to 1200 degrees to discover the amount of gold in the samples. This analysis process, used in the gold industry for hundreds of years, takes more than 24 hours.

Investors are also keeping a close eye on the geopolitical turmoil unfolding around the world, as its main manufacturing partner is Nuctech, a partially state-owned Chinese entity in Beijing. Nuctech manufactures approximately 80% of the parts, structures and frames of the finished machines. But Nuctech does not have access to the “black box” intellectual property that is at the heart of the PhotonAssay machines.

Chrysos projects revenues of $13.6 million in 2021-22, rising to $26.6 million in 2022-23. It forecasts net losses for those two years, with the loss expected to be $2.94 million in 2021-22 and $4.74 million the following year.

Mr Treasure said the total addressable market for Chrysos worldwide was 610 machines.

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