Glad you appreciate it. To be clear, i'm not anti HAS or Yangi,...

Glad you appreciate it. To be clear, i'm not anti HAS or Yangi, just pro integrity of communications to retail investors. Wyloo is Twiggy, and he is everything renewable energy right now as the next investment megatrend. Electric motors use a lot of permanent magnets, the best PM's currently are rare earth, the potential for extreme RE demand outstripping supply means great potential returns for ex- China RE mines and supply chain yada yada... Wyloo's interest for being involved is obvious and the same as ours being here on HC.

So Wyloo comes sniffing around HAS at a time they are publicly courting debt and equity funding to actually get this show on the road. Saw an opportunity to get a foot in the door, potential exposure to Yangibana and to NEO, who have great potential with unique western downstream RE IP etc. Who doesn't like having a call option to lock in exposure if RE/HAS/NEO value gets up and running. RE could do a lithium and rise above even the most bullish expectations.

Wyloo can only be involved if it's for big money, anything less than $100M probably doesn;t move the needle. HAS was shopping for big money debt and equity involvement... right commodity, right time, right opportunity to get exposure, but was it the right project and price? A Call option, even with a strike price $1 higher looked pretty good value senior secured against quality NEO shares and junior secured against all HAS assets after future senior debt has been repaid (ie ahead of all other equity and junior/unsecured creditors). Meanwhile, Wyloo get's paid 12% interest on that $150M loan over 3 years while Twig waits to see how the chips fall. Only senior secured project debt can be safer, but they don;t get any equity upside exposure if the RE market and HAS takes off, so probably Wyloo got the best deal possible for anyone on a risk-reward basis. Wynot...

The why not revolves around uncertainty of future NdPr prices. Tesla reminded the market there are alternatives to relying on China if prices become too high, supply becomes too uncertain. Substitute RE-magnets with non-RE-magnets that may or may not be better. Maybe just accept a small drop in efficiency for cost savings and strategic security while waiting for better non-RE-Magnet technology to become proven. At what NdPr price will western manufacturers subsidise many almost as good performing permanent magnet motors instead of subsidising expensive, long RE western supply chains? What is a few percent efficiency gain really worth when new electric motor designs are making higher efficiency gains every few years anyway?

RE PM substitution is the risk, and the risk gets higher the higher the NdPr price and more difficult building out non-China supply chains. Companies like Niron are working on iron nitride PM's better than the best RE-magnet. Sandia National Laboratories just won a 2022 R&D 100 award for nailing iron-nitride soft magnets made from FeN powders, and soft powder composites is the direction EV component manufacturing is going. Read up on electric motors over the weekend and was astounded at the variety of EV motors being available and being researched. The physics is quite complicated, fascinating, but the takeaway for me was that RE-magnets are not all or nothing like lithium is right not to the EV supply chain.

Motors with PM's still have advantages, which is why they dominate, partly because it takes a few years after changing motor design for changes to actually take effect. Improvements in next generation motors might be so good that a few percent loss to non-RE-PMs is a small price to pay when overshadowed by net gains from new tech. Take the Axial Flux motor, which companies like Mercedes are moving into a big way.

Axial Flux Motors: Future of Electric Vehicles (naxatralabs.com)

Whether the PMs are Re or not, whether the motor is an axial flux induction design (no PM's) instead of PM design, break throughs in electronic controls, semi-conductors, switching, soft magnet composites and cheaper manufacturing... the west will not stand still. Honestly, I came away thinking maybe Europe and the US are strategically keen to maintain some non-China RE supply chain, but individually companies are not desperate to go all in RE's. Would explain Tesla's guidance and maybe some other EV manufacturers reluctance to back new RE-magnet projects (no pun intended).

It's all up in the air. Back the right company and RE prices rise strongly big profits to be made, and vica verca. It's a dynamic and highly interesting space imo.

Good Luck