A4N, ASM and Lynas up on news that they attended a roundtable on with PM Anthony Albanese on setting up $4bn worth of funding for critical material projects.

https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/albanese-doubles-critical-minerals-subsidies-to-4b-20231024-p5eeiz

Citing A4N because it has the largest market cap and short positions

In addition, A4N has no offtake agreement yet.

I still don't understand the tech enough in A4N so don't hold given also the market cap is still over $700m with no earnings. It would be most helpful if someone can provide a much needed overview on what A4N does, their competitive advantage and why it justifies a 700m market cap given they are just a processor.

I also think it is still too early to imply any funding guarantees for the roundtable attendees

I added ILU since they already got funding from the government on building a rare earths processing plant.

From the annual reports, it appears stage 1 cashflow estimates are around 1.5-5m pa for this year.

However I have not found the report regarding any feasibility study as I'm interested in the revenue numbers as it is probably a better metric than cashflow in case those targets aren't reached.

This is one I'm still researching as I'm curious why it is still at a very high market cap (approaching 900m). But on the one hand Alpha is now producing a number of products which has high interest from a number of companies. Apologies for being vague but a lot of this stuff is outside my area of expertise. I guess not understanding could be a warning sign and I should stay away!

In addition there was a huge dump last week before it bounced although that is on low volume.

Maybe I have missed something but anyone know why this is still trading strongly at the current market cap after they announced a loss in December?

Is there a link to the latest feasibility study and not some old one done pre-inflation times?

Can't believe I had this on my watchlist at around 20 cents in 2020

Alpha released its 4C and corporate update today:

Highlights:

• As mentioned previously, the commissioning of the Stage 1 plant is complete and the focus has turned to tuning production capacity and quality, well underway
• This has triggered the first tranche of the government's Critical Mineral Development Program Grant and A4N has received $6.82 of the $15.5M Grant.
• Increased sales and marketing activity with multiple sample orders placed for potential production quality volumes. Nice to see a little more detail here than from previous announcements. Even more would be better!
• Continued investment in Stage 2 Design & Engineering and progressing to FID
• On the product development front, Successful development of Tri-Hydroxide (ATH). Following interactions with several significant lithium-ion cathode manufacturers and a global advanced materials company, Alpha’s product development team successfully developed a 4N+ Al(OH)3 (ATH) product with a sample product having now been shipped and under qualification testing. This product is a potential high-volume product across a diverse spectrum of applications, including lithium refining and as a dopant in cathode and speciality glass manufacture.
• Continuing collaboration and investment from Orica: In November Alpha signed a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Orica to mutually investigate the technical and commercial feasibility of establishing a new manufacturing facility in North America to produce high-purity aluminium products for the rapidly expanding future-facing industries in the region. Concurrent with the establishment of its North American MoU, Alpha and Orica executed and completed a Subscription Agreement with Orica acquiring a 5% equity interest in the Company.
• Cash on hand $28M

Lowlights:

• Actual booked revenue from sales is insignificant. Given the talk up in the release of the scale of sample and product testing, the booked revenue is virtually non-existent. Now they are through commissioning the Stage 1 Plant, getting sales beyond a much talked about pipeline and into the bank.

My interest was piqued when I noticed A4N (https://alphahpa.com.au) in Bell Potter's Analysts Pick Summary for 2022. I was unfamiliar but from a quick investigation, I'll be spending some time digging into this company. That Bell Potter report has a Speculative buy recommendation with a target price of $0.87.

The business has an aluminium purification technology that claims to produce the world's highest purity aluminium at low cost... perhaps too good to be true? Perhaps deeply disruptive? Worth exploring. High purity aluminium is critical for Li-ion batteries, synthetic sapphire (think the glass on your iPhone) and LED lights.

The Bell Potter report quick overview:

"A4N’s HPA and aluminium precursor products have applications in lithium ion battery, micro-LED and semiconductor manufacturing – technologies at the forefront of the global decarbonising and onshoring themes. The company’s proprietary process has produced product samples which have been recognised by a number of end-users as the highest purity tested. The high purity products and competitive unit costs have the potential to disrupt incumbent production methods and establish A4N as an integral part of rapidly advancing technology supply chains. The company has line of sight to cash flows as operations commence from its Precursor Production Facility from August 2022."