Earnings call transcript: Neo Performance Q3 2025 sees stock surge on earnings beat

Neo Performance Materials Inc. reported its third-quarter 2025 earnings, significantly surpassing market expectations with an earnings per share (EPS) of $0.19, compared to the forecasted $0.099, marking a 91.92% surprise. The company's revenue also exceeded expectations, coming in at $122.21 million against a forecast of $109.45 million, an 11.66% surprise. Following the announcement, Neo Performance's stock price surged by 11.21%, reflecting positive investor sentiment.

Key Takeaways

• Neo Performance's Q3 2025 EPS and revenue significantly exceeded forecasts.
• Stock price increased by over 11% following the earnings announcement.
• Full-year 2025 Adjusted EBITDA guidance was raised to $67-71 million.
• New European magnet facility and strategic partnership with Bosch highlight growth initiatives.

Company Performance

Neo Performance's strong financial results for Q3 2025 underscore its robust operational performance and strategic initiatives. The company reported a 27% year-over-year increase in year-to-date Adjusted EBITDA, reaching $55 million. The newly opened European magnet facility and expanded partnership with Bosch mark significant steps in its growth strategy. The company's focus on localized and resilient supply chains aligns with current industry trends and geopolitical considerations.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: $122 million for Q3 2025, surpassing forecasts by 11.66%.
• EPS: $0.19, significantly beating the forecast of $0.099.
• Adjusted EBITDA: $19 million for the quarter.
• Net Debt: Approximately $28 million.
• Total Liquidity: Exceeding $110 million.
• Gross Cash Balance: $61 million.

Earnings vs. Forecast

Neo Performance reported an EPS of $0.19, significantly above the forecasted $0.099, resulting in a 91.92% surprise. Revenue also exceeded expectations, reaching $122.21 million compared to the forecasted $109.45 million. This strong performance is a notable improvement compared to previous quarters and highlights the company's effective execution of its strategic initiatives.

Market Reaction

Following the earnings announcement, Neo Performance's stock price rose by 11.21%, closing at $17.86. This increase reflects investor confidence in the company's ability to exceed market expectations and execute its strategic plans. The stock's movement places it closer to its 52-week high of $23.6, indicating strong market sentiment.

Outlook & Guidance

Neo Performance raised its full-year 2025 Adjusted EBITDA guidance to $67-71 million, up from $64-68 million. The company is focused on expanding its operations in Europe and Thailand, developing heavy rare earth separation capabilities, and enhancing its recycling operations. These initiatives are expected to drive future growth and strengthen its competitive position.

Executive Commentary

CEO Rahim Suleman stated, "We are executing on a long-term strategy to grow our industry-leading permanent magnet business." He emphasized the industry's increasing need for critical materials from robust and localized supply chains, highlighting Neo Performance's strategic alignment with these trends. Suleman reaffirmed the company's commitment to operational excellence and delivering high-quality solutions to customers.

Risks and Challenges

• Supply Chain Disruptions: Geopolitical tensions could affect supply chain stability.
• Market Saturation: Increased competition in the critical materials sector.
• Economic Uncertainty: Global economic fluctuations may impact demand.
• Technological Advancements: Rapid changes could outpace current capabilities.
• Regulatory Changes: New policies could affect operations and profitability.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about the company's capacity expansion plans and the impact of its partnership with Bosch. Management highlighted ongoing discussions with potential customers and a careful approach to capacity expansion, ensuring alignment with market demand and strategic goals.

Full transcript - Neo Performance Materials Inc (NEO) Q3 2025:

Conference Call Operator: Recording and welcome to the Neo Performance Materials Third Quarter 2025 earnings conference call. For opening remarks and introduction, let me turn the call over to Karen Moray, General Counsel for Neo. Please go ahead.

Jonathan Baksh, Chief Financial Officer, Neo Performance Materials: Thank you, Operator, and good day, everyone. Today's call is being recorded, and replay will be available starting tomorrow in the Investor Center on our website at neomaterials.com. Our call will be accompanied by a live webcast presentation. If you are joining us online, the slides will advance automatically as we progress through the discussion. You can also download a copy of the presentation from our website. On today's call are Rahim Suleman, Neo's President and Chief Executive Officer, and Jonathan Baksh, Neo's Chief Financial Officer. Please note that some of the information you will hear during today's presentation and discussion will consist of forward-looking statements, including without limitation those regarding revenue, EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA, product volumes, product pricing, income and expense measures, cash returns, operational changes, and future business outlook, including potential expansion plans and agreements. Actual results or trends could differ materially from those discussed today.

For more information, please refer to the risk factors discussed in Neo's most recent financial filings, which are available on CDAR Plus and on our website. Neo assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements or information which speak as of their respective dates. Financial amounts presented today will be in US dollars. Non-IFRS financial measures will be used during this conference call, and information regarding reconciliation to the IFRS measures is set out in the financial statements and MT&A. I will now turn the call over to Rahim.

Rahim Suleman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Neo Performance Materials: Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Let's move to slide four. The third quarter was another strong period for Neo, marked by continuing to execute our growth strategy in global rare earth magnetics, momentum across the business and end markets, and solid financial results. We are advancing our strategic growth plans as an integrated rare earth magnetics and critical materials company. Our product platforms and technologies continue to benefit from megatrends in electrification, robotics, AI, and clean energy. The industry is accelerating its need for critical materials from both robust and localized supply chains. It is important to note that for Neo, we are well prepared to grow into this generational opportunity in rare earth magnetics. Neo, of course, has been in the rare earth magnetics space for 30 years and already has an integrated supply chain with rare separation in Europe for decades.

Thanks to our operational history, we are extremely well positioned to capture more opportunities with the focus in critical materials to serve our longstanding customers as they need to be served. Moving to slide five, our new European permanent magnet facility held its grand opening in September, a major milestone for Neo and indeed all of the critical materials space in Europe. The event drew senior government officials from the European Commission and customers from major automotive and technology OEMs from across Europe and North America. Our successful grand opening of this European magnet plant is a tangible demonstration of how industrial policy, customer commitment, and private investment can converge to create a resilient and regionalized supply chain. Our partnerships with government and industry stakeholders in Europe underscore the strategic value of this project.

It's not just a plant; it's the cornerstone of a European magnet ecosystem designed to support the transition to electrification, clean energy, and digital technologies. The early feedback from customers has been exceptional, with OEMs recognizing that Neo's European presence provides the reliability, transparency, and ESG assurances, all increasingly required in critical materials supply chains. This facility is designed as a scalable platform. Phase 1A establishes 2,000 metric tons of annual capacity, supporting both pilot production and initial customer programs for traction motors and eDrive systems. The next step, phase 1B, is already being planned and will expand the site to approximately 5,000 tons. Given overwhelming customer demand, Neo will also expand its product offerings and magnetic solutions toward additional applications, including accessory drive systems, wind turbines, robotics, drones, and automation. This endeavor will be one of the largest integrated magnet facilities in the Western Hemisphere.

Importantly, this growth can be achieved within the existing site footprint, providing an efficient pathway to scale as customer commitments, responsible launch timelines, and policy incentives align. At the grand opening, Neo also showcased our European rare earth separation business, highlighting the integrated nature of Neo's existing business. We are in the process of installing a heavy rare earth separation line in Europe as well, building on the vast infrastructure, skills, technology, and operational history that we already have. We expect to start separating heavy rare earths at small scale later in 2026. Moving to slide six, equally important this quarter was the signing of our expanded strategic partnership with Bosch, one of the world's most respected automotive technology leaders. This memorandum of understanding extends a longstanding relationship and formalizes collaboration on the supply of advanced rare earth magnetics for Bosch's next generation e-motor platforms and other applications.

The agreement provides a multi-year framework for magnet supply from our new European facility and underscores Bosch's confidence in Neo's technical capabilities, execution record, and alignment with their commitment to resilient and localized supply chains. This MOU represents a pivotal commercial milestone and a clear validation of our strategy of investing in Europe. It directly connects Neo's new magnet capacity with another leading tier one supplier. The multi-year nature of this agreement shows Bosch's desire to secure long-term capacity while reflecting one of the key mantras at Neo. It is about working together and managing responsible launch curves. In addition to Bosch and our first awarded customer, Schaeffler, Neo continues to advance qualification programs and contract discussions with additional automotive, industrial, and renewable energy customers. These engagements are translating into providing long-term demand visibility and supporting our path to scale.

I think what should be of particular interest to our shareholders and partners is the nature of Neo's awards and Neo's customers. These are firm awards for real multi-year programs with difficult technical specifications and for which we have already delivered samples. These programs are with some of the most advanced and largest motor manufacturers in the world. After all, to a magnet maker, the motor manufacturer, which is sometimes an OEM and sometimes a tier one, is the customer. Neo and MagnaQuench have served motor manufacturers for decades. These are our customers. They know us well, and we will continue to grow with them. Shifting gears to slide seven, we are making meaningful progress in simplifying our portfolio and focusing our capital allocation on the highest value segments.

In 2025, we have continued to deliver steady EBITDA expansion driven by operational efficiencies, improved product mix, and a disciplined approach to cost management. In our two largest manufacturing facilities, including the emissions catalyst control plant we opened in 2024, we are seeing significant conversion cost savings with the introduction of new automation and advanced data analytic techniques applied to our established manufacturing processes. We have also made advances in sustainability. Neo's rare metals business continues to expand its recovery and recycling capabilities, including gallium and hafnium, supporting both environmental and economic goals. These capabilities not only reduce waste but also strengthen our supply chain security. From a liquidity standpoint, our balance sheet gives us the flexibility to advance phase 1B of the European permanent magnet facility expansion, invest in next generation processing technologies, and pursue additional opportunities that enhance our downstream value-add capabilities.

As this slide eight illustrates, Neo continues to be a pure play beneficiary of the global shifts reshaping supply chains for critical materials. This is the convergence of three powerful forces: the macro demand for electrification, robotics, AI, and clean energy technologies, public policy tailwinds and customers driving regionalization, and our own unique asset base, techno experience, and years of operational excellence. Neo is positioned at the center of these three key success factors. Our differentiated platform enables us to meet customers' needs across geographies and technologies from magnetics to catalysts to rare metal recycling. These markets are supported by enduring macro trends rather than short-term cycles, which gives us the confidence in the durability of our growth plans. Our teams have done a remarkable job executing on complex projects across multiple geographies, maintaining safety, cost discipline, and a long-term focus on profitability.

I would like to thank them for their hard work and dedication. With that, I will now turn the call over to Jonathan for the financial review.

Jonathan Baksh, Chief Financial Officer, Neo Performance Materials: Thank you, Rahim, and good morning, everyone. Moving to slide ten, for the third quarter, Neo generated $122 million in revenue and $19 million in adjusted EBITDA, reflecting a resilient demand and strong execution across all three business segments. Year-to-date adjusted EBITDA stands at $55 million, up 27% compared to the same period last year. Given the solid results so far this year, we have raised our full year 2025 guidance to a range of $67-71 million, up from $64-68 million when we last reported in August. Growth this quarter was driven primarily by increased magnet volumes, up about 20% year over year, combined with solid contribution from emission catalyst and rare metals recycling. Our margin profile remains resilient despite market volatility, reflecting the benefits of operational efficiency, pass-through pricing, and previous portfolio actions that have asked highly volatile assets.

With that said, during the quarter, we experienced some benefit from customers pulling demand forward along with favorable movements in rare earth prices. While we continue to use pass-through pricing mechanisms in our customer contracts, short-term margin impacts from price fluctuations may still occur. These dynamics underscore the importance of our disciplined approach to managing volatility and maintaining predictable performance. Moving to slide 11, I'll touch briefly on performance by segment. MagnaQuench delivered strong profitability and volume growth in the third quarter, with volumes up 21% year over year and adjusted EBITDA rising 27% to $8.1 million. Year-to-date adjusted EBITDA reached $22.4 million, up 20% from last year, supported by higher volumes, operational efficiency, and disciplined cost management. Growth reflected solid underlying demand and customer restocking activity amid evolving supply chain and geopolitical conditions.

Bonded magnet shipments reached a record quarterly high of 38% year over year, driven by demand in automotive, AI data centers, and energy-efficient applications, while bonded powder volumes increased 18%, reflecting continued market share gains and healthy downstream demand. Moving to slide 12, the chemicals and oxide segment delivered another strong quarter with adjusted EBITDA up 213% year over year and 358% year to date, reaching $4.1 million and $16.4 million, respectively. These results are reflective of higher rare earth prices, portfolio transformation, and continued operational discipline. Following the sale of the Chinese separation assets and the relocation of the emission catalyst control plant operation, the business is now focused on higher margin growth areas, including emission catalyst and wastewater treatment solutions. Demand remains robust, with emission catalyst volumes up 20% in the quarter and wastewater treatment volumes up 42%, driven by global sustainability and environmental regulations.

The segment also continues to strengthen its European capabilities, operating one of the region's few non-captive separation facilities and advancing a new heavy rare earth separation pilot line, which remains on track and on budget as construction nears completion. Products continue to benefit from tighter environmental standards globally, particularly in Asia and Europe. Moving to slide 13, the rare metals segment delivered resilient financial performance with adjusted EBITDA of $11.5 million for the quarter and $30.9 million year to date, down 30% and 10%, respectively, from last year, reflecting the anticipated normalization of hafnium prices after record highs in 2024. Despite this, end market demand remained strong across aerospace, industrial gas turbine, and semiconductor applications, supported by continued global investment in advanced manufacturing and clean energy technologies. While hafnium margins declined 41% year over year as pricing stabilized, the gallium business performed well, benefiting from solid performance and regulatory tailwinds.

Neo also remains one of the only gallium recyclers in North America, a key competitive advantage that supports long-term growth and market resilience. Across all three businesses, our teams have executed extremely well in balancing near-term profitability with long-term growth priorities. Moving to slide 14 and turning to the balance sheet, Neo's financial position remains very strong. We ended the quarter with a net debt position of approximately $28 million and total liquidity exceeding $110 million, including credit facilities and government grants. Importantly, this includes a healthy gross cash balance of $61 million, reinforcing our strong financial position. Our disciplined approach to working capital and low leverage gives us the financial flexibility to fund ongoing growth projects and weather any near-term macro volatility. We also continue to prioritize shareholder returns. During the quarter, we maintained our regular dividend and NCIB while continuing to invest in growth capital projects.

As we move into the final quarter of the year, we expect to maintain steady momentum across our core platforms. Reflecting this confidence, we have raised our 2025 adjusted EBITDA guidance to a range of $67-71 million, underscoring our ability to deliver strong financial performance. As we move into 2026, our priorities continue to center on operational efficiency and capital discipline. With that, I'll turn the call back to Rahim for closing remarks.

Rahim Suleman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Neo Performance Materials: Thank you, Jonathan. Moving to slide 16. As we approach the end of 2025, Neo is in a strong position strategically, operationally, and financially. We are executing on a long-term strategy to grow our industry-leading permanent magnet business, enabling supply chain diversity and robustness, and supporting the global energy transition and technology advancements in multiple arenas. Our focus remains on operational excellence, delivering reliable, high-quality, critical material solutions to our customers, investing in innovation, and maintaining financial discipline. With our strong balance sheet, solid customer demand, and a pipeline of long-term strategic growth projects, Neo is well positioned to deliver profitable growth and long-term value for our shareholders. Thank you for joining us today, and we will now open the call for questions.

Conference Call Operator: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press the star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press the star followed by the number two. With that, our first question comes from Daniel Harman with Sirori. Please go ahead.

Daniel Harman, Analyst, Sirori: Hey, guys. Good morning. Thank you so much for taking my questions and congratulations on the great quarter. I'll start off with two, and then I'll get back into the queue. Starting off, with Narva now online after the grand opening and export controls continuing to tighten, I'm wondering if you're hearing from interest from customers if they are explicitly requiring localized magnet supply. If so, how do you think that's going to change the volume or quality of the programs you're being invited into? Secondly, just with MagnaQuench and magnet volumes seemed exceptional in the quarter once again. I'm curious if you could kind of break down how much of that strength feels structural from traction motors, data center cooling, and industrial automation versus maybe just short-term restocking from your customers. I really appreciate it, guys. Thank you.

Rahim Suleman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Neo Performance Materials: Sure. Good morning to you, and thanks for both questions. In terms of the first question with respect to the grand opening and the continued export controls, I think you're right in terms of we are seeing increased customer interest. Although I kind of break it into two pieces, I think there was already significant customer interest when we began the planning for this facility and we did the groundbreaking of this facility, call that two, three years ago. I think the customers already knew that they had a concentration risk issue that was important to them. I think with the restrictions that were put in place in early April, it absolutely ramped up that level of attention, the level of urgency in those requirements. Those requirements remain today. The grand opening facilitated more customers, more potential customers coming and asking for more agreements and more opportunities.

The MOU that we have with Bosch raised more customers to come to the door to ask for similar type of contracts or alternative type of opportunities. For us, the issue is never actually about customer demand. There is absolutely plenty of customer demand, and our customers know our capabilities, and they trust us, and they work with us. It's really just about time to launch. I think we're pretty darn confident in the sales funnel. We're pretty darn confident in our operational and technology capabilities, but we are also darn confident in understanding how a plant of this size gets launched and what a responsible way to do that is. From a demand perspective, there's really no issue.

It is figuring out what the right launch curves is and how you bring each customer on board with all of the related PPAP documentation and kind of control mechanisms that we have. When you are an automotive supplier or another supplier on mass production levels, you put a lot of controls in place around your production process for every part. And every part that we win, remember, every platform, at least the traction motor platforms that we are winning, these are $50-$100 million cumulative revenue programs. When you launch them, you better be good, you better be right, you better have your costs in place, and that is the way that we approach that. With respect to the MagnaQuench volumes, your second question, extremely high order for MagnaQuench volumes, extremely impressive for us. I think you pointed it out correctly. It is actually both.

It is demand across virtually all of the applications, but we do think some of that is a response to geopolitical environments. The question that is in front of everyone will really be, is this resetting people's inventory pipelines so that people feel more comfortable on how much inventory they're holding, or was this a temporary? Is this a pull forward that'll get reversed in the future quarter? I think it's more likely that the pipelines are being filled and that customers want to hold more inventory through the system. I think we'll see if that means that some of these volumes unwind or volumes just return to normal or if there's kind of continued pipeline growth. I think that the volume number of MagnaQuench was kind of above our forecast and expectations of what the normal business looks like. The normal business continues to grow.

Traction motor business continues to grow even in the existing MagnaQuench segment. AI data centers continue to grow. I think all of those elements of the business are performing extremely well, and I think that they'll continue to perform extremely well.

Perfect. That's a really helpful answer. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Conference Call Operator: The next question comes from Nick Boychuk with Cormark Securities. Please go ahead.

Nick Boychuk, Analyst, Cormark Securities: Thanks. Good morning, guys. Coming back to the Bosch partnership, and you mentioned that other partners are coming to you looking for similar deals. Can you give any update on how those negotiations are going, expectations with Bosch to convert that into a formal order, and your appetite to sign similar type contracts with other partners?

Rahim Suleman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Neo Performance Materials: Yeah. When you say negotiations for sales, it's really not negotiations in the traditional form. Everybody talks about what partnership means and the supply chain all needs to be partners and this, that, and everything else. I'd say it's one of the first times in my career that I feel that this is a partnership-based conversation, that we're having dialogues with our customers and for others that are coming to the door, and we're talking about, "Look, these are the reasonable launch windows we have available at this point, and this is what the development timeline for any particular product would be." People are really understanding in terms of how do they fit into that development type pipeline and how do they fit into the launch curves.

I would say the factor here at play is not negotiating over price or negotiating over specifications or this, that, or anything else. The factor here is saying, "Okay, in order for us all to be successful on this path, they require both a level of urgency but a level of reliability, and we require a level of cost certainty, so margin confidence, as well as not putting other customers in jeopardy." I think both sides appreciate the openness of our dialogue. The opportunities are there, and we'll pivot our pace depending on how launches go and depending on what types of programs.

We are having conversations with customers on, "Look, certain types of programs that have certain compositions are probably faster for us to also go through a development cycle for than compositions that are different." We just kind of make choices with the customer, but we do it in a fairly transparent and open environment because everybody wants everyone to be successful here.

Nick Boychuk, Analyst, Cormark Securities: Just to clarify then that in these development partnership conversations you're having, you're able to directly express the margin or the pricing that you need in order to justify investment, and they're comfortable with that type of a negotiation?

Rahim Suleman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Neo Performance Materials: Yeah. Look, we're not talking about specific price at this point. When we talk about specific price and those things, we have a sample developed, the composition established, the product flow established, and all of those types of things. They understand that there is a difference between the Chinese cost and cost in manufacturing elsewhere in the world. I think we're fortunate in our manufacturing location is actually quite cost-effective. I think our customers appreciate that that cost-effectiveness matters, but it doesn't mean that it's the same price or the same cost as producing it in Southeast Asia. Therefore, there is an open dialogue on the costs are not the same. It's not hostage pricing. It's dialogue around costs are not the same, margin expectations are not the same, new capital in place, and return on capital expectations are not the same.

Let's work together to figure out how we solve the ultimate challenge, which is a diversified supply base. They're very good conversations. It's less about price negotiation, more than it is about understanding what the requirements are and what that path to success looks like.

Nick Boychuk, Analyst, Cormark Securities: Okay. What impact, if any, is that having on your thoughts around developing a phase 1B? Is this potentially pulling that forward, giving you a little bit more certainty to make that investment maybe sooner?

Rahim Suleman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Neo Performance Materials: Yeah. I think it's about certainty and comfort on making the investment. I think that the investment will proceed on a timeline that makes sense for the operation too. It's not just about winning the programs, but each program has its own launch curve too, right? It's about finding the right time that matches all the various launch curves that we have of the programs that we have, of those that we're onboarding, and knowing when that capacity will be required. Again, the factor is managing the launch curves and then just planning so that we're not spending capital unnecessarily and that we're just finding the right timeline for it. Certainly, huge visibility into demand. I guess if you were to, I'd say it this way. When we started this project three years ago, we evaluated financial risk, customer risk, technical risk, operational.

We evaluated a whole series of criteria for us to move forward on these, and then we had levels of confidence on each of those that ultimately led to the business decision to move forward with this. If you look at one of those criteria, which was customer acceptance, it's more than 100% now. If we were to look at what our criteria was, our score on customer acceptance would be greater than 100%, but we still have to get through the time to launch.

Nick Boychuk, Analyst, Cormark Securities: Okay. Understood. Thanks, Rahim.

Rahim Suleman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Neo Performance Materials: Thank you.

Conference Call Operator: If you would like to ask a question, please press the star one on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Ian Gillies with Steeple. Please go ahead.

Ian Gillies, Analyst, Steeple: Good morning, everyone.

Rahim Suleman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Neo Performance Materials: Good morning.

Ian Gillies, Analyst, Steeple: Could you talk a little bit more about the heavy rare earth separation expansion plans in Estonia? Maybe a bit around ultimately how large you would like that to be if possible, what you intend to produce. Do you expect it to be a material financial contributor and the like?

Rahim Suleman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Neo Performance Materials: Sure. What I'd say is on heavy rare earth separation, we also follow the same methodology of step by step. What we are producing here is a mini production line. It's not a lab. We've done lab stuff all through our career. We have our Singapore lab that's been doing heavy rare earth-related stuff for 30 years. We have one of the most advanced rare earth magnetics labs in Estonia already, obviously, and all the infrastructure attached to it. This line is not a lab line, but it is a mini production line. The purpose of building the mini production line at first is to roll it out and see some of the dynamics to be able to separate for a while and get real-life experience on some of the timelines and some of the chemistry and some of the purity levels that we're going to get.

It will then lead to subsequent decisions on how do we integrate that with the existing light rare earth line. There are various points in time that one can make choices around how one would integrate it or whether one would build an expansion into the light rare earth line as well and whether one would do that on a parallel basis or an integrated basis. There are lots of decisions and planning and engineering that we would still do. Again, I would say that because we have the history, the knowledge, and the technical expertise to make what I say is the best decisions, right, to make the right decisions, not to just run forward with whatever one thinks is the right thing to do. We have the ability to play out different options and model different options and see how all of that comes together.

To get it back to your question, the scale remains small. We haven't said specifically what the scale of the product will be. It depends largely on the feed that we're receiving. We have some heavy rare earths in our existing sets of feed, but not enough. We'll be working through stockpiles while we're also receiving material from our existing feed stocks. We need more feed stocks of heavy rare earth generally in the world. In terms of the availability of NdPr, separate it into the two pieces. Do we need more feed stock to support separation, or do we need more feed stock to support magnets? Magnets can buy feed stock from other people like raw material as well, and they do. This isn't an issue that is tied to our ability to make magnets.

This is just an opportunity that's tied to our rare earth separation business of scaling that business to be larger. We will scale the heavy rare earth line in due course when we have better visibility to more rare earth feed. We wanted to get this mini production line in place. A, it does provide some rare earths to MagnaQuench, not enough, but more particularly—and it is never intended to be enough. We always want MagnaQuench to be multi-sourced. We will always partner with Lynas and MP Materials and others in the industry for sourcing for MagnaQuench. We have been partnering with them and Lynas in particular for a decade. We will continue to do that. There is no dialogue on us not continuing to partner with others in the rare earth industry and wanting supply. It really does not matter how much we build in our soil mat separation business.

Our philosophy will always be to be dual-sourced or multi-sourced in those environments. In terms of the actual economics, I think you have to wait to answer that question until we actually have a better view on what the largest and most likely form of next feed stock will be, what the exact heavy composition will be. In terms of what we will separate, appreciate this is getting to be a long answer now. In terms of what we will separate, it's always to start by separating Dy and Tb because of the imminent need in magnetics for more Dy and Tb. The reality is, because we've been doing heavy rare separation for 30 years, we have customers around the world for all of the various different heavy rare earth elements. We have one of the largest global technical sales forces in rare earths.

We will have the opportunity to separate other materials as well, working with our customers to satisfy their demands. We have not made those decisions as yet. As I said, we approach it on a step-by-step basis. Sorry for the long answer.

Understood. No, your honesty is always appreciated. Similarly, around capital projects, one of the things that came up during the Estonia tour and the investor presentation was a potential expansion of Korat in Thailand. Is that a formal project yet? Is it a thought on the back of a napkin? Where would you define that potential opportunity at this point in time? Because it also seems like something promising.

Yeah. It's certainly not a thought on a napkin, but it's also not yet—I think times are going to be measured in weeks here, not in months or quarters, where it will become an official project, which is to say I ostensibly believe it's already an official project within the MagnaQuench planning team, but it still has to be reviewed and go through the appropriate approval processes. I'm very confident in the growth rate of magnets in general, very confident in having more capacity. Probably what's really the focus of the review process that are coming are things around capital efficiency more than opportunity. It's likely going to happen, but it has to go through the right approval processes and have the right metrics attached to it before we say yes or no.

Ian Gillies, Analyst, Steeple: Okay. Are you willing to disclose how much you think that debottlenecking could improve production by at that facility?

Rahim Suleman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Neo Performance Materials: Probably not yet. I think what we would be doing in Thailand would be partially debottlenecking, but frankly, it would actually be adding gross capacity because there is just more business. It would be the types of capacity and the types of programs that we would be focused on within the review process. It would be primarily volume and product-related style capacity more than trying to solve an existing problem. Conversion costs and everything else are separate projects. There is capital that goes into conversion cost improvements, and it has its own return on capital metrics that we measure. Those things kind of continue in everyday life. Expansion capital goes through a different review process.

Ian Gillies, Analyst, Steeple: Understood. Listening to your remarks on phase 1B of the Estonia expansion or phase 2, however we choose to frame that, it sounded certainly a bit more optimistic even than a few months ago. A question I get often is, why isn't the decision being accelerated from early 2027? Are you putting any thought to pulling that decision forward given what you're seeing?

Rahim Suleman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Neo Performance Materials: Yeah, I think so. I mean, like I said, I think that there's a number of different decision criteria that go into whether we would pull that forward. The limiting factor, as I said, is not customer interest. It's not demand. That is crystal clear that that is not the limiting factor in our decision-making process. Our decision-making process, it's so much—frankly, it's not even about an if. It's merely about a when. The when is merely tied to capital efficiency and ensuring the greatest returns on shareholder capital. It's like we haven't committed to it, so it's odd for me to say it's not an if decision. It obviously is an if decision. I still need to see proper economics. We still need to go to the board. We still need to do a number of things.

From a customer demand perspective and from what we know about our ability to make the magnets and ability to understand pricing and have customers, all of those things are well established for us by now. Again, the decision on—I will say the decision is primarily one related to timing, and that is really just about capital efficiency and the greatest return on capital to shareholders.

Ian Gillies, Analyst, Steeple: Okay. Last one I'll ask. At this juncture, given your conversations with whether it be the EU or specific European governments, do you get any sense yet as to whether any sort of similar pricing arrangements could happen in Europe similar to what's happened with the DOD in the United States?

Rahim Suleman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Neo Performance Materials: I'll break the question into two, which is to say, unfortunately, we're not going to comment on specific conversations that we're having with various governments around the world. We won't provide any specifics on those dialogues. In terms of the general concept around price floors or price supports or this, that, or everything else, let's bear in mind that for MagnaQuench, which is the magnet-making portion of this kind of supply chain and probably the most important element of the dialogue for us, the raw material is on pass-through. It's less of an economic consideration for Neo in terms of MagnaQuench. It just affects the viability to the customers' side of things and provides certainty to a customer in terms of pricing. I think those things are valid, but there's pros and cons to both.

In terms of the separation side of the business, I think it does have a bigger impact to the separation side of the business. However, we're not a mining company, so it doesn't have that level of impact. A couple of different dynamics to put into the mix, but as I said, we won't comment specifically on government conversations.

Ian Gillies, Analyst, Steeple: Fair enough. Had to try. Thanks very much. I'll turn it back over.

Rahim Suleman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Neo Performance Materials: Absolutely. We are everybody's favorite phone call these days.

Conference Call Operator: Thank you. I am showing no further questions at this time. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you all for joining us. This now concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.

This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C.