On all cylinders...

I must admit my recent sailing experiences have left me with limited contact with the business world I am very happy to say that during the past month I have given little thought to my investment in Lynas. I was able to read many of the HC comments and discussion following the global market correction and I am really pleased to see that at Lynas progress continues to be made in all of the major projects…

My comment on the thread with a negatively biased evaluation of progress at Kalgoorlie is that anyone who knows Kam (VP of Upstream and the company technical visionary) will understand that he is in the middle of the projects of his dreams and has plenty of IP and experience to create new technology needed in the completion of these projects. With all due respect to the wannabe engineers who find the Kalgoorlie project to be overwhelming and fraught with challenges, I think the Lynas engineering team is probably up to these challenges and will find that Kam has a pretty good game plan in mind…

I was fortunate to have dinner with Kam on a couple of occasions and also we had the opportunity to tour the LAMP. One quickly realizes that Kam has not only developed the LAMP but created an entire engineering team working on multiple fronts on multiple projects. The Lynas engineering team is a highly qualified and are the same people who brought the LAMP (and Mt. Weld) to life while continuing to refine the process every day…

Couple this with Amanda’s policy of employee retention where the secret is not just compensation but the excellent reputation Lynas has built over the years by being genuinely and actively interested in the community. This all adds up to a supercharged company accumulating IP, experience and is actually using these huge competitive advantages to define the rare earth industry. I don’t think most people get this…

It’s pretty obvious I am not a numbers guy, I tend to focus on management and leadership when I evaluate a company. One thing I have noticed and have mentioned on occasion is the stability of the leadership team at Lynas…

Other than Mike Harding leaving the board and Andrew Arnold moving on, there has been little change to the board or the senior staff. Andrew was somewhat recently replaced by Daniel Havas who is VP of Strategy and Investor Relations. These days it is pretty unusual, amazing and powerful to have a team work together at this level for such a long time without the ego’s taking over and getting in the way of the mission…

One other item of note, Amanda (in the last call) mentioned that the staff was over 90% vaccinated with that number headed closer to 95% or more (there were a few necessary medical exemptions). It is quite clear that while the Lynas workplace may be covered it is the community Amanda cares about and she is committed to contributing to mitigating Covid in the local community for the benefit of the local community…

Frankly, I am impressed that somehow Amanda has a management style that has resulted in near 100% compliance (there were a few necessary medical exemptions). This was accomplished without demonstrations and strikes and it would appear that the LAMP employees are very content and happy to work together as a team to accomplish to goal of the Lynas corporate policy and ultimately to the benefit of shareholders…

Bottom Line, Lynas as a stock is volatile and unpredictable while Lynas as a company is in the process of executing a well defined and publicized long term plan to become the dominant leader in the rare earth industry. It seems to escape most that Lynas is proceeding at full speed ahead utilizing its vast amount of intellectual property and experience to develop new methods and processes. Bottom line, while the market continues to discover what we all know, Lynas continues to run like a finely tuned engine hitting on all 12 cylinders… JMHO…