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nanotimes Companies Facts
OC Oerlikon Corporation AG, Switzerland, (SWX: OERL) announced the successful placement of a 4 year CHF300 million straight bond with a coupon of 4.25%. The issue of the domestic bond is conditional for the effectiveness and utilisation of the new Syndicated Credit Facility announced on June 6, 2012. Payment date of the straight bond will be on July 13, 2012. The net proceeds will be used for the refinancing of the existing credit facilities from the financial restructuring in 2010 which is expected to be finalized in July 2012. The new financing structure will significantly reduce Oerlikon’s cost of financing, increase flexibility and diversify the company’s funding sources. Recently, Oerlikon has signed an agreement with immediate effect to sell its 13.97% minority stake in the Swiss aircraft manufacturer Pilatus Flugzeugwerke AG to Pilatus Flugzeugwerke AG, to IHAG Holding, Zürich and J.F. Burkart (Southfield Aircraft Ltd.). The parties agreed not to disclose the purchase price. The transaction will have a positive one time effect on Oerlikon’s 2012 financial result.
Oxford Instruments NanoAnalysis has launched INCAMineral, a product for automated Mineral Liberation Analysis on a multipurpose SEM. The Oxford Instruments solution provides accurate classification of minerals at speeds comparable to dedicated systems – but with the flexibility to perform other investigations as required. Mineral Liberation Analysis is used by the mining community to optimise the recovery of base metals, platinum group metals (PGM) and iron in ores during the recovery process. The ore is crushed and then the particles are statistically analysed in an electron microscope to characterise the ore, provide vital data on metal recovery and enable process yield analysis.
Moreover, Oxford Instruments has recently installed a state-of-the-art 14 Tesla superconducting magnet system for ultra-high-vacuum experiments at Diamond Light Source, the UK’s national synchrotron facility. The magnet system has been installed on the new I10 Beamline for Advanced Dichroism Experiments (BLADE) and has already been used by the first researchers to search for "hidden magnetic states". If found they will provide important confirmation of a theoretical model which would have important applications in magnetic data storage. The new magnet system required several months to build and install due to the high level of integration with Diamond equipment and the innovative steps within the magnet and system design to meet the experimental needs. To allow fast ramping of the magnetic field, the 14 Tesla, horizontal field split pair magnet was constructed using Oxford Instruments’ innovative low-hysteresis Nb3Sn superconducting wire, developed by Oxford Superconducting Technology (OST) as part of its contract to supply 58 tonnes of wire to the ITER project. As a result, the magnet can be swept from -14 T to +14 T in less than an hour, a significant achievement in itself. Since the magnet has to operate in an ultra high vacuum (UHV) environment, directly connected to the Diamond beamline, its construction required the specific UHV cleaning and build processes and facilities which Oxford Instruments has developed over some years. The system is thus fully UHV compatible and has been designed to be baked.