Modular carpark maker PARKD signs MOU with BlueScope Steel to eye collaboration on IP

Modular carpark maker PARKD (ASX:PKD) has beefed up the value of its business relationships with a memorandum of understanding (MOU) executed with BlueScope Steel (ASX: BSL) today. 

Alongside the household name in Australian steel fabrication, PARKD will work with Bluescope (trading as Fielders) to identify opportunities where business activities can be synergised. 

PARKD is hopeful that it can persuade BluesScope Steel to allow its own sheet metal product into PARKD’s supply chain, seeing BlueScope IP used in construction of modular multi-level carparks, as well as residential and commercial buildings. 

BlueScope to assess value 

BlueScope will ultimately assess PARKD’s business acumen and weigh up the value opportunity. 

Fielders’ national sales and innovation chief Matt Lloyde noted his company’s wishes to incorporate existing sheet metal products into PARKD’s materials base. 

“We are excited by the potential offered by this R&D partnership to release further potential in our metal deck sheeting products and look forward to realising the commercial outcomes from these efforts,” Lloyde said. 

Decarbonisation and efficiency 

PARKD is looking at the combination of Fielders’ “metal deck slab system” with its own patented technology to allow a low-carbon solution for the local construction industry. 

“With Governments and Private Companies committing to Carbon Net Zero Targets we see this integrated construction solution as a low embedded carbon option compared with existing forms of construction on the market,” PARKD chief Peter McUtchen said. 

“[The partnership could allow us to] greatly simplify construction methodology further improving safety, cost and speed outcomes and importantly has the potential to be delivered to sites as a complete system of parts with a simple set of instructions,” McUtchen added. 

Demonstration of success 

PARKD earlier this year demonstrated its abilities on a contract with John Hughes, WA’s largest used car dealer. 

The company constructed a two-storey carpark inside an existing warehouse for a dealership warehouse, in what the company touted as an example of success as a disruptor in the construction industry. 

In late September, PARKD won a contract with an Audi luxury retailer in Perth valued at $12.4m. 

A look at PARKD's three month charts