KaiBosch
446 posts










Was planning to stay offline to make the most of our last few days in Puglia, but this surge in interest in the ex-China rare earths space today really is phenomenal. The implications for core holding Mkango Resources #MKA are wonderful. There are now 11 pure-play rare earths businesses listed on ex-China public exchanges that are valued at in excess of $500m. All but the top two in the list below are pre-revenue companies (at least, in any material sense). MP Materials $MP - $17.0bn Lynas Rare Earths $LYC - $13.3bn USA Rare Earth $USAR - $4.6bn Critical Metals Corp $CRML - $2.3bn Dateline Resources $DTR - $1.2bn Rare Element Resources $REEMF - $771m Idaho Strategic Resources $IDR - $724m Pensana Rare Earths #PRE - $674m Arafura Rare Earths $ARU - $663m Ucore Rare Metals $UCU - $591m Aclara Resources $ARA - $534m Even despite its 13x share price uplift over the past 12 months, Mkango #MKA, closing at 65p today, has a mkt cap of $299m. Of the 9 pre-producers in the list above, only PRE and ARU are (arguably) further ahead in the race to bring their respective mines online. Mkango's Songwe Hill is backed by the US government ($4.6m grant, a further $100m loan for mine build under consideration). It is also backed by the EU - it's been designated a "Strategic Project by the European Commission under the Critical Raw Materials Act." In reality, this means that it's reasonably likely to expect Songwe Hill to receive similar financial support to that which the US Gvt is considering. Mkango's proposed rare earths separation plant, Pulawy (to be built in Poland), has also been designated a Strategic Project by the EC. Personally, I think the FEED will demonstrate an average annual EBITDA of the combined projects of somewhere around the $200m-$300m mark - and Songwe Hill's initial mine life is two decades. But let's see. Anyhow - given the backing of the EU and US, and its advanced stage of development, I think it's fair - given the peer group valuations above - for those two assets to be valued at >$700m, as of today. Fortunately for us Mkango investors, Songwe Hill and Pulawy are being spun out onto NASDAQ in the next 2-4 moths via a SPAC listing - the company is to be called Mkango Rare Earths $MKAR). The proposed value of MKA's holding is $400m (being 40m shares at the listing price of $10). The likely mkt cap will be around $500m at listing price, with MKA retaining a circa 80% shareholding in MKAR. ...... So - the upside for MKA from its current mkt cap is blindingly obvious, given that it is ex-UK investment communities driving lofty valuations in the REE space this year, and that MKA is resultantly listing its assets on NASDAQ in the near term. BUT - that's just accounting for Mkango's upstream assets. The much more valuable side of the company is its 80% equity interest in NdFeB magnet recycling and production business, HyProMag. There is very limited rare earths IP outside of China. HyProMag's hydrogen-based recycling patents are - in my view - likely the most important worldwide. If anyone has any other suggestions, I'd love to hear them. AI (esp. robotics) is going to drive incredible improvements in recycling sorting and pre-processing (shredding, etc.). There are many tens of thousands of tonnes of NdFeB in waste streams, or in active circulation, in the US, EU East Asia, South Asia, Africa, South and Central America right now. With a low cost recycling and remanufacturing process, virgin / new permanent magnet demand could be reduced by 20%, perhaps 30% worldwide. HyProMag provides that simple and extremely low cost flowsheet. Short-loop recycling. It doesn't deal in any other of the 15 REEs than the magnet REEs. No oversupplied metals (cerium, etc.) touched at all. Purely recycling NdPr and DyTb, to repress into new magnets. In just 2-3 months, HyProMag will be recycling / manufacturing NdFeB magnets in two nations (UK and Germany); and within 18-20 months, in three nations (with the first US plant coming online sometime in H1 2027). Can anyone tell me if there's a company manufacturing permanent magnets in two countries at the moment? I don't know of any. In 3-4 years, HyProMag could be operating magnet recycling and manufacturing plants in 6 nations. It has publicly repeatedly stated that it's in discussions to open plants in Japan, South Korea and Canada, in addition to the first three nations. The US Gvt has not only backed Songwe Hill, but has provided a letter of interest to HyProMag for a $92m low cost loan for the first plant build-out. In its original design, each US plant was forecast to generate around $66m EBITDA per annum, with a 40-year life. But the plant design has been expanded by circa 50% now, to ~1,550 tonnes per annum of NdFeB material. Recently asked by the US Gvt how many plants would be ideal for fulfilling the needs of the USA, HyProMag responded, 6-7 plants across the nation. Each one has an NPV of $650-$700m, pre-production. Now imagine HyProMag rolling out 3-4 such plants in Japan, and elsewhere in the EU besides Germany. Then South Korea. Canada. India. Central and South America. I maintain that HyProMag should be one of the most valuable ex-China REE companies after MP and LYC. It seems pretty certain the HyProMag will list on NASDAQ in the nearish future. Look at USAR's mkt cap above. $4.6bn. It will in late 2026 be manufacturing NdFeB magnets. Zero IP, zero recycling capability. 3-4 times the cost of sales as HyProMag, per kg of NdFeB magnet. What valuation will HyProMag fetch when it lists? I suspect multiple $ billions, in this environment. Mkango - already operating, constructing or designing plants in 5 nations right now (Malawi, Poland, UK, Germany, US) - has the largest international footprint of any rare earths company in the world. The growth opportunity here is obscene, with the critical minerals version of Operation Warpspeed now underway. The market is slowly cottoning on, but there is a HUGE open road ahead.





WHO ARE THE REAL WINNERS FROM THE RECENT TARIFF TENSIONS? Rare earth metals. Here’s how they performed on Friday. $SPY [-2.70%] $QQQ [-3.47%] $TMRC +23.99% $UAMY +12.22% $MP +8.49% $PPTA +7.73% $IDR +6.05% $NB +5.59% $USAR +4.96% $UUUU +3.25% $CRML +1.84% $AREC +0.99% $IPX -1.86% $TMC -5.28%



















Exclusive: Audioboom, the London-listed podcast producer whose titles include F1: Beyond The Grid, is working with bankers to explore a sale of the company after receiving a number of expressions of interest; Audioboom has a market cap of close to £100m. news.sky.com/story/formula-…












