Redfern Photonics lands USD 28 million

17 Jun 2002

Australia-based photonics company plans further investment in its optical components subsidiary.

Redfern Photonics in Australia has received more than 54million Australian dollars (USD 28 million) from a syndicate led by Deutsche Bank's private equity-investment group DB Capital Partners, in its second major external investment funding. GE Equity, Citicorp Equity Capital, Ericsson Deutsche Technology Fund, the Australasian Technology Fund and Temasek Capital also participated in the round.

Additional funding could be raised in a second close of this investment round should Redfern Photonics require additional expansion capital in the coming months.

Chris Howells, CEO of Redfern Photonics, said: "We are delighted to welcome this high-calibre group of investors onto the Redfern Photonics share register. While our group differs from many conventional investment opportunities, our new investors clearly share our vision in 'building businesses' and the excellent returns that this strategy offers. We see this investment as a reflection of the market's continued confidence in the company's ability to deliver a photonics solution of global significance using world-class intellectual property.

"This current funding is central to accelerating the commercialization of our optical components subsidiary [Redfern Optical Components] and the many other new opportunities still under review and development."

Roger Keane, head of GE Equity in Australia and New Zealand, said: "We benchmarked Redfern Photonics against other global investment opportunities in optical networking and are convinced that its technology is truly world-class. With Redfern's unique relationship with the Australian Photonics CRC, we expect that it will stay on the cutting edge."

Redfern Photonics describes its principal activity as "the investment and commercialization of technology opportunities focused on the photonics-communications industry". Much of this technology is acquired from the Australian Photonics Cooperative Research Centre.