RE: RNS: Production of Commercial Rare Earth confirmed5 Sep 2023 09:58
Berenberg view: This is a milestone announcement for Rainbow and proves the concept that a marketable rare earth sulphate product can be generated from Phalaborwa (and therefore proving the concept to be rolled out to other opportunities, such as the Uberaba phosphogypsum stack in Brazil, which is a joint venture with Mosaic). In our view, this de-risks the project significantly and also allows Rainbow to explore whether phasing production (first a rare earth sulphate, then a separated rare earth oxide) is a sensible, lower-risk (project and financial) option than the initial plan to build a full separated rare earth pilot plant in South Africa, particularly as the sulphate product could generate early revenues to financially de-risk the funding of the back end. We also think that a back-end process plant to produce separated rare earth oxides in the US (an option being considered) offers an attractive geopolitical angle given efforts to reduce China's dominance in the rare earth value chain. We expect the shares to materially rally on the news, and further re-rate from the current risked P/NAV of 0.38x.? Valuation: We value Rainbow at 1.0x our risked NAV, generating a price target of GBp43 and supporting our Buy rating. Our price target offers 160% upside.