Since Ecobulbs were launched in October 2004, more than half the homes in New Zealand have bought the innovative light bulb, the brainchild of Christchurch-based company Energy Mad. Now the company is moving into the next phase of its growth, as Sally Rae reports.
When Chris Mardon arrived home after the February 22 earthquake in Christchurch to find his new house "completely destroyed", it got him thinking.
Dr Mardon and and his friend Tom Mackenzie, who founded the company Energy Mad which makes Ecobulb energy-saving light bulbs, had toyed with the idea of listing the company on the New Zealand Stock Exchange.
As he sat outside the house, in which he was due to get married in two weeks, he decided to forge ahead with the plan.
The Christchurch-based company is now carrying out an Initial Public Offering (IPO) in order to list on the main board of the stock exchange.
The prospectus was registered on Friday, August 19, 2011.
The company is preparing to hit the road, marketing to investors and brokers. The offer opens on Monday and closes on September 23.
A presentation will be held in Dunedin on Wednesday at Quality Hotel Cargills, at 6.30pm.
Dr Mardon and Mr Mackenzie have been friends since they were at the University of Canterbury together in the early 1990s.
Dr Mardon was one of New Zealand's leading young manufacturing executives before co-founding Energy Mad.
After his graduate and doctorate degrees in mechanical engineering, he was promoted through senior manufacturing management roles in paper tissue, automotive and plastic film manufacturing facilities.
In 2002, he was awarded the New Zealand Institution of Professional Engineers Young Engineer of the Year award.
Mr Mackenzie has a background in project management, which involved the implementation of energy-saving designs in large international buildings.
His formal education included a graduate degree in mechanical engineering and a masters in advanced environmental and energy studies.
Mr Mackenzie would regularly come to Dr Mardon with business ideas and, in 2004, he came up with his brightest idea yet - if 50% of New Zealand homes were each to buy five energy-saving light bulbs, they could save enough electricity to power Christchurch for a year.
It was an ambitious plan because, at the time, energy-saving bulbs had been available for more than 20 years but were installed in only 4% of homes.
They talked to a few power companies, without success, before Line Trust South Canterbury signed with them and the first Ecobulb project was launched in October, 2004. Six weeks later, two-thirds of South Canterbury homes had bought five Ecobulbs.
Over the next three years, Energy Mad worked with every major electricity utility in New Zealand, along with the Electricity Commission (since replaced by the Electricity Authority), Foodstuffs and Shell New Zealand.
Energy Mad became the fastest growing company in 2007 when it won the Deloitte Fast 50 award. By late that year, the goal of saving all the electricity used by Christchurch was already achieved.
Just as they were beginning to get traction into markets in Australia and the United States, the global financial crisis struck and the company's bank withdrew its working capital facility with little warning.
Despite suddenly having no cash, they "hung in there" and, after two years of hard work, the international wins started to flow.
That began with Australia, where more than 500,000 homes have installed Ecobulbs in the past 18 months, then the United States, Germany, Spain and Ireland.
Globally, Ecobulbs were saving enough electricity to power almost 25% of New Zealand for a year, and saving about $2.8 billion worth of electricity.
In the last financial year, the company achieved revenue of $8.6 million (it was $5.9 million the previous year) and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (ebitda) of $1.4 million. Revenue was forecast to grow to $21.3 million in 2013 and ebitda to $6.2 million.
It was very much a growth story - a New Zealand company "taking off, growing fast and saving the world", Dr Mardon said.
Energy Mad had only "scratched the surface" of its $8.2 billion target market. Having achieved its original vision of getting five Ecobulbs into half the homes in New Zealand, the vision now was to "replace the world's incandescent and halogen bulbs with Ecobulbs, and save enough electricity to power the whole of New Zealand for a year".
The last couple of years had been tough for small businesses to get their hands on bank finances and the company, which now has 14 staff, had to look at how it was going to grow and fund that international growth.
The IPO would help provide Energy Mad with the capital it needed to secure and deliver on the market opportunities it was already developing in the United States and Europe.
It would also allow the company to accelerate the introduction of the next generation of Ecobulb products.
It was intended to raise at least $5 million and there had already been plenty of interest, Dr Mardon said.
As for Dr Mardon's destroyed house?
The goal was to have it rebuilt by March 31 next year, in time for him to get married there.
