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We feel now is a pretty good time to analyse Ionic Rare Earths Limited's (ASX:IXR) business as it appears the company may be on the cusp of a considerable accomplishment. Ionic Rare Earths Limited engages in the mining, refining, and recycling of magnet and heavy rare earth elements in Australia, Uganda, and United Kingdom. The AU$36m market-cap company announced a latest loss of AU$21m on 30 June 2024 for its most recent financial year result. Many investors are wondering about the rate at which Ionic Rare Earths will turn a profit, with the big question being “when will the company breakeven?” We've put together a brief outline of industry analyst expectations for the company, its year of breakeven and its implied growth rate.
Ionic Rare Earths is bordering on breakeven, according to the 2 Australian Metals and Mining analysts. They anticipate the company to incur a final loss in 2025, before generating positive profits of AU$23m in 2026.
The company is therefore projected to breakeven just over a year from now. How fast will the company have to grow each year in order to reach the breakeven point by 2026? Working backwards from analyst estimates, it turns out that they expect the company to grow 123% year-on-year, on average, which signals high confidence from analysts. If this rate turns out to be too aggressive, the company may become profitable much later than analysts predict.
Underlying developments driving Ionic Rare Earths' growth isn’t the focus of this broad overview, though, bear in mind that typically a metal and mining business has lumpy cash flows which are contingent on the natural resource mined and stage at which the company is operating. This means, large upcoming growth rates are not abnormal as the company is beginning to reap the benefits of earlier investments.
Before we wrap up, there’s one aspect worth mentioning. Ionic Rare Earths currently has no debt on its balance sheet, which is rare for a loss-making metals and mining company, which usually has a high level of debt relative to its equity. This means that the company has been operating purely on its equity investment and has no debt burden. This aspect reduces the risk around investing in the loss-making company.
IXR Price at posting:
0.7¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
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