Auckland, NZ, Nov. 18--A new wool company owned by New Zealand's sheep farmers has roared into life with a multimillion-dollar deal to deliver a wonder wool protein to the world's cosmetic buyers.
The deal comes as more than half of all sheep farmers have decided to invest in Wool Equities, the company formed from the Wool Board's break-up to exploit science breakthroughs in meat and wool research.
All 12,100 farmers were allocated shares and were asked to elect to either buy further shares or accept a payout from the board's reserves. Wool Equities chairman Richard Bentley said yesterday that more than half had decided to invest, giving the company extra capital of $12.5 million, $1 million more than it had expected.
At the same time, Bentley announced a deal with the world's biggest manufacturer of raw materials to the cosmetic industry, British-based Croda International, to distribute a range of cosmetic ingredients made from the wool protein keratin.
Keratin is made by Keratec, a 67 percent subsidiary of Wool Equities. The protein has a variety of uses, many of them in the medical field, including surgical bone screws.
Neither side was revealing the value of the deal. Croda sells more than $800 million of cosmetics ingredients a year. Bentley said Keratec would have access to global markets, and the prospect of collaboration between each company's science teams was "most exciting".
Other Wool Equities subsidiaries are Canesis, which researches wool proteins and fibres and promotes carpet wools, 33 percent-owned Ovita, which researches gene markers in sheep that will enable the breeding of healthier and more productive animals, and Tectra, which will pass on the practical uses of research to farmers. Wool Equities will list on the new NZAX market on Thursday.
