Global Advanced Metals has sold the last of its shares in Wildcat Resources as it focuses on expansion of its Greenbushes mine operation and US manufacturing facility.
A new financial report from Global Advanced Metals shows it has sold the last of its shares in Wildcat Resources as it focuses on expansion of its Greenbushes mine operation and US manufacturing facility.
Backed by private equity firm Resource Capital Funds, GAM is a major supplier of tantalum and niobium products from mining operations at Greenbushes in the South West and Wodgina in the Pilbara.
RCF signalled two years ago that it was putting GAM up for sale but instead has supported an expansion of the business, helped by government grants in Australia and the United States.
This has included the installation of an additional tantalum recovery plant at Greenbushes, to match the growth in Talison Lithium’s associated mining activity.
The Greenbushes recovery plant was valued at $28 million as at June 30, up from $21.5 million one year earlier.
More significantly, GAM plans to invest $44.3 million building a facility in Pennsylvania to produce high-purity niobium oxide, which is used in the production of specialty steels and alloys for use in jet and rocket engines.
The US Department of Defense agreed to last year to provide a $26.4 million grant for the facility.
GAM has further strengthened its ties with US defense agencies over the past two months.
It has signed contracts to supply up to $100 million of tantalum ingots and up to $50 million of niobium ingots over the next 5 years for the US national defence stockpile.
Chief executive Andrew O’Donovan said these contracts complemented the partnership with the US Department of Defense to re-establish domestic niobium oxide production.
GAM’s latest financial accounts, lodged with ASIC, show it generated total revenue of $156 million in the year to June 2025, down slightly on the prior year.
It incurred a net loss of $7.2 million after a profit of $75 million in the prior year
The prior result included a net $81 million profit from transactions related to sale of its Tabba Tabba tenements near Port Hedland to aspiring miner Wildcat Resources in October 2023.
The consideration included 186 million ordinary shares and 62 million performance shares in Wildcat plus royalties on any lithium and tantalum production.
GAM recorded a $55 million gain from the subsequent sale of its ordinary shares in Wildcat, in October 2023.
It sold the Wildcat shares to ASX company Mineral Resources, which was chaired at the time by RCF and GAM director James McClements.
More recently, in August this year, it sold all its remaining Wildcat scrip, after the performance shares converted to ordinary shares.
The remaining shares had been valued at just $6 million at June 30, after a $6.9 million write-down.
The group’s manufacturing operations in Boyertown, Pennsylvania, and Aizu in Japan currently produce various tantalum and niobium metallurgical products and tantalum capacitor powders.
The capacitor powders are used in electronic and automotive applications, while other mill products are used within the aerospace, chemical processing, minerals exploration, medical and defence industries.
It upgrades primary tantalum ore concentrate at its Greenbushes secondary processing plant.
The primary concentrate is sourced from third parties and through its tantalum recovery plants at Talison Lithium’s Greenbushes mine and Mineral Resources’ Wodgina mine.
