Millennium Cell Acquires Gecko Energy Technologies; Companies to Develop Hydrogen Batteries for Portable Device Markets
Millennium Cell Inc. announced that the company has acquired all of the remaining outstanding shares of Gecko Energy Technologies, Inc. through a merger of Gecko with a subsidiary of the company. For this transaction, the company issued 2,000,000 common shares for approximately 66% of Gecko's outstanding shares owned by its two founders. Millennium Cell had previously owned approximately 34% of the outstanding shares of Gecko.
In February of 2006, the companies entered into a three year agreement to focus on the development of Gecko's PowerSkin™ fuel cell technology to support the application of hydrogen batteries in portable electronic devices. Since that time, the collaboration has resulted in the development and small scale manufacturing of PowerSkin,™ a thin passive planar fuel cell module that the company claims to be a leap forward in the architecture of power sources for portable devices. Earlier this year the companies collaborated to power a wireless camera and have received interest in these power sources from a number of potential customers. The two companies will initially focus on developing fuel cell power products to address military and consumer electronics applications that require less than 20W of power.
Prior to the merger, Millennium Cell had invested approximately $1.5 million in cash and services for its initial 34% interest. The common shares of Millennium Cell acquired by the founders of Gecko are subject to a one-year holding period. Gecko will operate as a separate, wholly-owned subsidiary of Millennium Cell and the founders will remain with Gecko under the terms of employment agreements between the founders and Millennium Cell's wholly owned subsidiary. Other agreements between Millennium Cell and Gecko that were entered into at the time of the original investment by Millennium Cell have been modified or terminated to reflect the changed circumstances of Gecko becoming a wholly-owned subsidiary.
