Almonty Flips the Switch at Sangdong as a War Chest Built on Convertible Debt Fuels a Buyback
Published on 08/25/2026 at 08:02 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
The tungsten producer that spent years selling a story about South Korea's Sangdong mine is now selling something more tangible: concentrate. Almonty Industries put its processing plant in Gangwon Province into throughput operation on Sunday, crossing the threshold from development-stage narrative to actual production of marketable tungsten concentrate.
That operational milestone landed in the middle of a busy stretch for the company's capital markets activity. Just a day later, Almonty kicked off a share repurchase program of up to $300 million, a move the board framed as a response to what management sees as a disconnect between the stock price and the value of its tungsten assets, particularly with Sangdong ramping up.
A Balance Sheet Transformed
The buyback is backed by a cash position that would have been unthinkable a year ago. As of June 30, Almonty held roughly C$1.23 billion in cash, up from C$268.4 million at the end of 2025. The jump traces to an oversubscribed convertible bond offering of $800 million carrying a 2.25% coupon and maturing in 2031, which closed on June 9.
That financial firepower gives the board room to repurchase up to 14.4 million shares — about 5% of outstanding stock — over a 36-month window.
The second-quarter numbers that preceded all this activity provide the financial backdrop. Revenue came in at C$43.0 million, up 498% from C$7.2 million in the same period last year. Net income swung from a loss of C$58.2 million to a gain of C$181.8 million. Adjusted EBITDA improved to C$17.6 million from a negative C$4.8 million, and gross margin in the mining business hit 60.7%.
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Those figures were generated before the plant actually started producing, reflecting strong tungsten pricing more than operational output. With Sangdong now running, the mine's own contribution to the income statement should begin to layer in gradually.
A Better Offtake, a Revised Estimate
Almonty also used the period to renegotiate its long-term offtake agreement with Global Tungsten & Powders, a Plansee Group company, effective July 14. The contract now runs six years longer, commits 40% more volume, and carries roughly 6.3% improved pricing terms — a combination that gives the Sangdong output a clearer path to market at more favorable economics.
Not every signal from the analyst community has been uniformly upbeat, though. Diamond Equity Research trimmed its 2026 earnings-per-share estimate to $0.39 from $0.55 in a note last Wednesday, a reduction that suggests near-term ramp-up costs or timing frictions are weighing more heavily on the firm's modeling than the Sangdong momentum.
Streamlining the Listing Structure
Almonty is also consolidating where its shares trade. The Toronto Stock Exchange listing ended in late July, with the company pointing to the Nasdaq as the venue handling the bulk of daily volume. The Australian exit follows a similar logic: the ASX has approved the voluntary delisting, with trading in CHESS Depositary Interests — representing just 0.80% of issued shares — set to halt at the close on August 28 and final delisting scheduled for September 1. Going forward, trading concentrates on the Nasdaq under the ticker ALM and in Frankfurt under ALI1.
One insider data point bears watching: director Mark Trachuk sold roughly 200,000 shares in early July at about $16.97 each, the largest insider disposal in three months. Over the past twelve months, insiders have been net sellers to the tune of $6.4 million.
What Comes Next
Sangdong's Phase I targets an ore throughput capacity of around 640,000 tonnes per year, with a fully permitted Phase II designed to double that to 1.2 million tonnes. The offtake agreement with GTP, running 21 years and covering 90% of Phase I production, was already in place before the renegotiation improved its terms.
For investors, the question has shifted from whether Sangdong would ever produce to how quickly the Gangwon facility reaches full utilization — and whether the revenue and earnings momentum visible in the second quarter can survive contact with operational reality. The buyback and the balance sheet suggest management is betting it can.
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