Western rare earths just got their first real mine-to-magnet champion
Energy Fuels (UUUU) signed a deal to buy VACUUMSCHMELZE for ~$1.9B, and the structure is what matters. Once it closes, UUUU can move a rare earth from ore to finished magnet without China touching a single step:
• Ore from the Donald Project in Australia
• Separation at the White Mesa Mill in Utah
• Metal from Korea today (via the ASM acquisition), the U.S. next
• Magnets out of VAC’s Sumter, South Carolina plant
The price tag breaks down as $718M cash, 65.85M newly issued UUUU shares, and up to ~$103M in contingent preferred, landing at ~$1.9B equity value off the June 22 close of $16.12. Add ~$140M of VAC net debt that Energy Fuels takes on.
Look past the headline number, though, and the funding is the tell:
• $250M Goldman Sachs term loan to refinance VAC’s existing debt
• $725M, 20-year conditional loan from the Office of Strategic Capital for the White Mesa expansion and a new U.S. metals plant
• A$220M being lined up with Export Finance Australia for the Donald Project
• $41M U.S. Department of War grant already parked inside VAC
Allied government capital and private capital, layered across four countries. That combination is the actual cost of standing up a supply chain outside China, and almost nobody else is assembling it.
VAC earns the trust, too. Over a century in operation, 400+ patents, 1,000+ customers, DFARS compliant, and already under a Defense Logistics Agency contract feeding the U.S. defense stockpile. Sumter runs 2,000 tonnes a year today with a path to 12,000 as orders arrive.
Targeted close is early 2027. This is what vertical integration looks like when someone actually commits to it. Credit where it’s due.