<\/p>\n
You can also listen to this podcast on iono.fm here.<\/p>\n
SIMON BROWN: I\u2019m chatting now with Paul Mann, CEO of ASP Isotopes [ASPI]. Disclaimer upfront: I hold shares in ASP Isotopes. Paul, you had the business update for the investor community earlier in the week. I want to delve into some of it.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s start with Renergen, which I think is what a lot of my listeners will know. That is the Virginia Gas Project. You have Phase 1 ahead of schedule and your helium \u2013 you\u2019re looking at nameplate capacity in the third quarter of this year, both of those bigger steps in the project.<\/p>\n
PAUL MANN: Yes. That\u2019s right. We acquired the assets properly in January this year, although we started investing and funding and controlling the assets back in May last year. And we\u2019ve put some of our engineers down there. We\u2019ve recruited some incredible drilling experts from the United States, and just kind of accelerated the project and put more manpower behind it \u2013 and we\u2019re ahead of schedule now.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve drilled all the wells required for nameplate capacity in Phase1; the plant is complete. We\u2019re going to connect the wells now to the plant, and that plant should start producing liquid helium \u2013 which the world is desperate for right now, given what\u2019s going on in the Middle East.<\/p>\n
Read: Renergen firms as Free State plant finally starts helium production<\/p>\n
SIMON BROWN: Of course, a lot of helium is not going through the Strait of Hormuz. So we desperately need it.<\/p>\n
Quantum Leap Energy, which is your nuclear [company] \u2013 you are looking at a spinoff here. A couple of questions. Where is that process and what does the structure look like post-spinoff?<\/p>\n
PAUL MANN: Yes. We\u2019ve always said that nuclear fuels and nuclear medicine are very different businesses. We have to sign energy certificates in our nuclear-medicine business stating we\u2019re not enriching uranium. The goal has always been to separate the two businesses \u2013 same technologies, just different end-markets.<\/p>\n
So we filed what\u2019s called an S-1 with the SEC, the US Securities and Exchange Commission, in November last year. Normally that would be a 30-day process but, given the government shutdown in the US last year, there\u2019s a bit of a backlog \u2013 so it\u2019s taking a bit longer than one would have hoped to go through that process.<\/p>\n
Read: Trump sons back ASP Isotopes Inc\u2019s uranium unit Quantum Leap Energy<\/p>\n
Then on February 14th the financials went stale. We\u2019ve just filed our 10-K so we can now put the new financials into the US1. The financials are no longer stale. So that\u2019s good.<\/p>\n
So we\u2019re aiming for a first-half, second-quarter public market listing, public market debut. They are likely to take the form of an IPO. Other structures we can look at, such as the reverse merger \u2013 and then all the convertible notes will convert into equity.<\/p>\n
And I\u2019d have thought at some point shortly after that, we\u2019d like to distribute some shares to the \u2026\u00a0shareholders who may benefit from this as well.<\/p>\n
So you should expect to have both a US and a South African listing. That will happen between now and the end of the year. But the main IPO, the main market listing, should happen or will hopefully happen during the second quarter. Obviously that is much dependent upon certain things that are out of our control.<\/p>\n
Read: Renergen approved to become a fully owned subsidiary of ASP Isotopes
Renergen ASP Isotopes deal is offering great opportunity<\/p>\n
SIMON BROWN: Yes, I take the point. I\u2019d forgotten about the shutdowns, which of course create all sorts of complications.<\/p>\n
Silicon 28, your electronics \u2013 you\u2019ve got commercial production that is running at your facility up here in Pretoria. You have some purchase agreements signed. You shipped samples to customers late last year; you\u2019re going to be shipping finished product this quarter. That is really full steam ahead there.<\/p>\n
PAUL MANN: Yes. So right now we\u2019re just changing some O-rings in the compressors. An O-ring is something that seals the compressor from the outside air. What we found was our compressors were only helium-tight to a vacuum of 10 to the minus five, and we really need 10 to the minus six, or 10 to the minus seven.<\/p>\n
And we decided that the O-rings were faulty. What that would have meant was that the plant wouldn\u2019t have lasted very long. The O-rings would have got stiff, brittle, and broken.<\/p>\n
Read: Renergen finally produces liquid helium<\/p>\n
So we\u2019re changing the O-rings right now. Actually, two of our customers came down to South Africa from the United States to look at the plant and give us advice. These two customers are probably some of the world\u2019s leading experts in xylene, which is what we process. They recommended making those changes and we\u2019re making those changes now. Once that\u2019s finished the plant should start up and we\u2019ll start producing product.<\/p>\n
SIMON BROWN: Your radiopharmacy? You\u2019ve been doing a fair bit of acquisition in that space, a couple of sort of bolt-on maybe acquisitions last year. The plan is essentially to double revenue in 2026, and I imagine to grow significantly from there as well \u2013 targeting what, about $10 million for this year?<\/p>\n
PAUL MANN: Yes, that\u2019s right. There\u2019s an opportunity here to acquire many small sub-scale radiopharmacies, add what we\u2019ve built in South Africa into those radiopharmacies, essentially a Control C and Control V, to what we have here and turn this into a really impressive global radiopharmacy in many geographies \u2013 and we have the expertise and capabilities to do it. So let\u2019s get on and do it.<\/p>\n
The capital for this project is off the charts. It\u2019s an incredible ton of capital. So we are keen to deploy capital in this.<\/p>\n
Read: Renergen shares rocket on US buyout offer<\/p>\n
SIMON BROWN: You mentioned capital. You have just about $333\u00a0million \u2013 and these are dollars in cash. Is that enough for now? What is your sort of runway with that, because you\u2019re at the point where you are actually starting to get revenue from some of the projects?<\/p>\n
PAUL MANN: Yes, that\u2019s plenty for now. Hopefully we won\u2019t need any more equity capital again. When you think about our uses of capital, we need to put about $170\u00a0million into Renergen, and that will unlock the three quarters of a billion dollars of funding from the US government and from Standard Bank.<\/p>\n
Now that money won\u2019t get spent immediately. That money will get spent over the 44-month build process. We had to put that $170 into the project to draw down the $750.<\/p>\n
And then we\u2019re going to build a couple more isotope plants \u2013 a couple in South Africa, and one in the UK, and then some more in South Africa. That will use the balance of the funds.<\/p>\n
Read: Renergen secures funding but springs a leak<\/p>\n
But, as you said, we should start to generate revenues now and that should allow us to come cash flow break-even towards the back half of this year. That puts the company in a very different position from where it has been for the last five years.<\/p>\n
SIMON BROWN: Absolutely. It\u2019s sort of that tipping point. And your target is the \u2026 million Ebitda for 2031. So that\u2019s about five years off.<\/p>\n
PAUL MANN: I suspect the exit rate from 2030 will be over $300\u00a0million. But obviously the first full year to realise that will be 2031. In the investor update call last week we gave a breakdown of where those respective Ebitdas come from \u2013 which division, which part of the business.<\/p>\n
You\u2019ll see it\u2019s a broad mix of industries not reliant on any one particular subsector.<\/p>\n
SIMON BROWN: That is perhaps the key point around ASP\u00a0Isotopes. There is maybe some overlap in the broader level but, in essence, you are in different industries \u2013 in some cases vastly different. You have cancer treatments as well.<\/p>\n
PAUL MANN: Correct. Actually, we\u2019ve got four candidates going into human clinical trials later on this year, and we\u2019ll run those Phase 1 trials in South Africa.<\/p>\n
The clinical \u2026 looks incredible. My background is more in biotech than it is in other stuff, and so this is [something] that I love. It\u2019s great to see some of the most incredible oncology scientists here in South Africa running these trials.<\/p>\n
SIMON BROWN: How long are trials? It\u2019s almost a curiosity. My sense is that these are sort of multi-, multi-years. Am I correct?<\/p>\n
PAUL MANN: No, actually they are very fast trials to run. So in Phase 1 clinical trial we should have initial results within the first few months.<\/p>\n
SIMON BROWN: Oh, wow!<\/p>\n
PAUL MANN: So you can see the tumour responding to treatment straight away. And if the tumour starts to shrink then you absolutely see it. Now obviously the final endpoint, the overall survival progression, free survival, is several months to years away. But wherever the drug works you start to see what\u2019s called a \u2018response\u2019 almost immediately, and that\u2019s what we\u2019re looking for. That\u2019s the important signal we\u2019re looking for.<\/p>\n
SIMON BROWN: Yes, I hadn\u2019t thought of that. Of course, as you said, the response is almost immediate.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ll leave it there. Paul Mann, CEO, ASP Isotopes, appreciate the time.<\/p>\n
Listen to the full MoneywebNOW podcast every weekday morning here.<\/p>\n
#Key #developments #ASP #Isotopes<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
You can also listen to this podcast on iono.fm here. SIMON BROWN: I\u2019m chatting now…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[8909,5061,8910,634],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4123"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4123\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}