There's a feed joining. I'll just give it another moment. Good morning and welcome to the Amaero Investor Webinar. I'm Jane Morgan, Investor and Media Relations Manager, and today I am joined by our Chairman and CEO, Hank J. Holland. Today's webinar will be a company update followed by a Q&A session. To ask a question throughout today's webinar, please use the Q&A function, which can be found at the bottom of your screen. I'll hand over to you, Hank, for some opening remarks.
Great, thank you very much, Jane. Thank you, everyone, for joining. Very pleased to join investors today for a brief webinar after we announced yesterday a five-year exclusive supply agreement with Titomic for spherical refractory and titanium alloy powders, very much following our strategy to align with key partners in verticals across advanced manufacturing. As you think back a little bit over a year ago, the first such long-term agreement was with Admaero Castillon, the undisputed technical leader for printing C103 and refractory alloys. More recently, we announced a long-term agreement, again exclusive, with Velo3D, the only made-in-U.S.A. metal 3D printing equipment OEM, and very important to the U.S. government and the U.S. Department of Defense for that reason. Now, as I mentioned, very grateful to announce the alignment with Titomic. It will be an exclusive supply agreement. Also, importantly, it will be a development collaboration.
We'll touch on, I'm sure, in a bit here, much of what Titomic has done in the past has been the repair and maintenance side. It's actually what cold spray has been most widely used for. As it relates to repair and maintenance, one of the nice things about cold spray is they can use angular or less expensive powders, less processed, less refined powders, if you will, than spherical powder, particularly gas atomized spherical powders such as Amaero. At the very same time, Titomic is hoping to significantly grow their business by making mission-critical in parts. The specs that we have seen from Defense Prime for these first article in parts to be qualified are requiring spherical powder. We do expect this will be the case on a going forward basis for these mission-critical parts. It's a great opportunity for Amaero to align with Titomic.
I think it's also a great opportunity for Titomic to establish a resilient and scalable U.S. supply chain of that spherical refractory and titanium powder.
Thank you for that, Hank. We've had a few questions that have come through beforehand. I'll jump into the first one. How does the five-year exclusive supply and development agreement with Titomic enhance Amaero's positioning within the U.S. defense and aerospace supply chain?
Great, thank you. Importantly, the way that I think of Amaero's opportunity is metal advanced manufacturing, broadly speaking, right? What we've got to do is reshore manufacturing capabilities in the U.S. This is particularly true on the defense industrial base. Think about the submarine industrial base. We must have a quote-unquote, "all of the above" strategy. Additive manufacturing or 3D printing is going to be an important part of that for mission-critical, high-tolerance, smaller, more technical parts, if you will. There will be other modalities such as cold spray that in theory can be much more appropriate for larger parts. Cold spray is particularly applicable for conical parts, if you will, round parts. I think pressure vessels is something that Titomic has talked about in the past, many of which, by the way, are made of titanium. Heretofore, they have not qualified these parts.
We think thereto we can be very helpful to Titomic. Most of their high-value parts will be refractory and titanium. There will be a lot of repair and maintenance that they do that will be stainless steel, that will be nickels, that will be copper nickels. That's not an area that Amaero makes powder. They will continue to work with other powder providers. For repair and maintenance, I think much of that will be angular powders. I think on these high-value mission-critical parts, you will see a significant role for spherical refractory titanium powder. Titomic is the player, the partner that we've chosen in that vertical.
Thank you, Hank. Just staying on that topic as well, can you give us a sense of the volumes you would expect from this agreement or how much of the current and planned capacity this takes up over the next couple of years?
Yes. One of the things I said in our announcement, and always trying to give investors a good sense of how we see the impact on this in the near term, I think for FY2026, the Titomic supply agreement is probably 5% to 10% of our revenue. We will have revenue this quarter. We will ship powder this quarter to Titomic as part of this agreement. However, I think the qualification period will take a bit longer. We will begin collaborating with them on first articles, I would expect between now and the end of this calendar year. We've already identified four refractory alloys, of which they have had interest expressed from Defense Primes.
We are going to work very closely with Titomic so that we can collaborate with them and bring powders, develop powders, if you will, collaboratively that are specifically geared at both the demand signal from the customer side as well as high-priority development programs. Think about some defense labs that might be involved in that type of work. We purposely have structured this flexible to benefit Titomic and to benefit Amaero. I would expect between now and the end of this calendar year, we would likely work on a couple of alloys together. We would atomize, process, and ship those powders to Titomic. Titomic, in turn, would produce in parts, produce critical coatings, whatever the case may be. We would collaboratively test those. Then we'd refine that with another couple of alloys, I would expect between now and the end of the fiscal year.
Titomic does not have any taker pay commitment. We purposely position this very collaboratively. We want to see Titomic be very successful. In turn, Amaero would be successful.
Thank you, Hank. This one's come through a few times, actually. Just on the broader manufacturing strategy, can you provide a bit of an update on the broader U.S. manufacturing strategy?
Yes. Broadly speaking, I think of this as two separate strategies: defense industrial base and then all the themes that we're seeing for onshoring manufacturing. On the defense industrial base side, hypersonics, missile defense, strategic missiles, nuclear, a lot of interest on refractory alloys. We have started another project, which we get to announce with Velo3D, that is a munitions project, again with a refractory alloy. A lot of opportunity that we see on the refractory side. Much of that will be in Air Force, Army, Air Force, as I said, as far as missiles, hypersonics, Navy, missiles, hypersonics, Army, munitions, and so forth. On the maritime and submarine industrial base, there you've got a bit of titanium, but a lot of...
Oh, have we lost you, Hank? Hello?
Wire Arc additive manufacturing or WAM. There are other companies in DED. These are large parts that will be particularly appropriate for maritime industrial base. On the titanium side, there are some very, very large onshoring manufacturing opportunities. I suspect we'll talk a bit about it later. This is one of the primary reasons we want to pull forward our fourth atomizer and also invest in the argon recycling, which will give us a further lead from a cost standpoint.
Thank you, Hank. Next one here. Beyond cold spray, what other advanced manufacturing modalities are you prioritizing for near-term growth?
Yeah, I think immediately speaking, we've got a lot of other very interesting work that we're doing in additive manufacturing. Think about our partnership with Admaero Castillon and CAM AdMan. Think about our partnership with Velo3D. This will be not only parts, but as I said, also munitions. Munitions is a very large market that heretofore Amaero has not been in. Stay tuned. We're doing some early work right now. To the extent that work is successful, I hope and expect that it will be, I think that could be a significant incremental opportunity for both us and Velo3D. PM HIP, very, very large manufacturing opportunity. It's an opportunity that's come at us more quickly than... It's an opportunity that we're going to invest more heavily in and more heavily in and again pull forward some demand as well as expand some capacity. Then cold spray.
Again, cold spray, most of the work that I would see that we would do there would be mission-critical, some of which could be coatings, think thermal protection, i.e., hypersonics, much of which will be in part manufacturing such as pressure vessels.
That's the next question that's come through just on the hypersonics program. Can you provide a bit of an update on the current state of the hypersonics program and the urgency, and then how this relates to Amaero and Admaero Castillon's offtakes or Titomic, rather?
Yes, the Trump administration and the U.S. Department of Defense have just recently announced that they are greenlighting all of the current hypersonic programs. We had five different programs that were in what we call research, development, testing, and evaluation, RDT&E. All of...
Sorry, is that me just cutting out with Hank or... One second. David, is that cutting out for you? Oh, here we go.
Yeah, Jane, I apologize. We have a storm. I was dropped off the Wi-Fi, so I apologize.
No, that's OK.
I was just updating on hypersonics. Let me repeat that if I may. The good news is with the Trump administration, they recently announced that all of the current, of which there are five, hypersonic programs that are going through research, development, testing, evaluation, RDT&E. All of those programs will be advanced to production, which is a great thing for Amaero, a great thing for the need for high-temperature refractory alloys such as C103 and then substitute alloys such as TZM and other things that we've been working on. Likewise, in the Sentinel missile program, the Sentinel program is one of the larger U.S. Department of Defense programs in its history. This is the ICBMs that will replace the Minuteman. Thereto you've got significant refractory opportunities. Finally, missile defense. With the priority programs of the Trump administration, the U.S.
Department of Defense, you're seeing significant need for high-temperature refractory and other high-temperature metals. You're on mute there, Jane.
Sorry. We're struggling today a little bit, aren't we? OK, next one's come through. Now that 3DA are getting more established in the powder manufacturing space, can you go back and relook at the old joint venture with PPK in regards to the inclusion of BNNTs into the powder mix to create the next cutting-edge metal alloy?
Yeah, it's an interesting question. I did have conversations with Glen and PPK probably a year and a half, it might even have been two years ago now. We have not followed it more recently. Back then, the challenge, as you might recall, was really a cost issue. I think that's probably an area that PPK has made some advancement on. It's certainly something that I would be happy to take another look at to the extent it would be consistent with our, you know, we want to stay very true to advanced materials and advanced manufacturing. Within materials, stay very true to advanced specialty powders, right? To the extent BNT would play that role, it would certainly be something that I would be happy to revisit. It is not something we're currently engaged with PPK on.
OK, next one. This one's come through a few times just on the capital raise. Perhaps if you just want to give a little bit of background on the capital raise. I think we did announce that Amaero was fully funded. Yeah, perhaps.
Yeah, so let me pick up on that. As you said, Amaero is fully funded. Prior to this capital raise, it was fully funded, as we had shared. When we talked about Amaero being fully funded, that was fully funded to fund a $72 million Australian CapEx program that we had, as well as to get us to EBITDA positive in FY2027. At the very same time, the board met the Thursday morning before the capital raise. A number of investment banks and, candidly, a number of funds directly had approached the company. There was a lot of interest in the space, as you know, defense industrial base, advanced materials, manufacturing, onshoring in general. The board took that up as part of its agenda that Thursday morning. The real question from the board was not so much is there interest. Clearly, there was a lot of interest in Amaero.
We had seen other companies successfully have capital raise. We also were continuing to be very focused on improving the liquidity of Amaero and bringing on other lead funds where appropriate in Amaero. The primary thing that drove the board to reconsider was the use of capital. What I would comment on is, and I take a lot of pride in this, and as a largest shareholder, it's really, really important to me. Amaero has had a highly disciplined strategy for allocation of capital. Prior to this capital raise, we had raised $98.5 million going back to May of 2022. Over a three-year period of time, $70 million of that $98.5 million is on our balance sheet today in cash or tangible assets, right? Again, a very disciplined allocation of capital, very, very focused on minimizing dilution, given myself as a largest shareholder and others.
Yet from the board's perspective, it made sense to continue to lean in. As you know, we've been very forward-leaning with capital investments that we've made. We're two to three years ahead of other companies that have come to the defense industrial base manufacturing reshoring opportunity in the U.S. We commissioned our first atomizer in June of 2024, our second one in June of 2025, our third one is ordered, we'll commission in June of 2026. The board felt, let's maintain this one-year cadence. We had planned to order the fourth atomizer in FY2027 and pay for it out of free cash flow in FY2028. One of the reasons for this capital raise, pull forward, IGIN number four, commission that in June of 2027. You'll have June of 2024, 2025, 2026, and 2027.
In addition to that, we've said now many times that we are the lowest cost producer in the U.S. for spherical refractory and titanium powder. We're the lowest cost by a lot, meaning probably on the order of $20 per kg for titanium. A significant cost advantage. At the very same time, scale gives you certain benefits that others won't have. Once we get out to having four atomizers, our cost of argon is about $4 million U.S. per year. The cost to install argon recycling, the initial bids, of which we have two sets of design engineering bids, we've looked at this over the last six months, is $8 million U.S. I'm assuming $8 to $10 million U.S. It's about a two to two and a half year payback period, right? Which is a very attractive payback period for that type of capital asset.
Also importantly, argon has got a cost of about $8 per kg for titanium. That's $8 U.S. per kg for titanium. That translates to a cost of powder of $20 to $25. Meaning we could further reduce our powder price by $20 to $25 if we so desired and maintain the same margin structure by making this capital investment. It gives us a lot of flexibility. There are some very, very large corporate opportunities that we've been engaged with over the last six months. One of those in particular, I will tell you that since we made this announcement, we have further advanced it. The idea that we've shown and demonstrated our commitment to now have 800 tons of atomization capacity, that's 600 tons or three atomizers dedicated to titanium, OK? That would make us six times the next largest titanium spherical powder producer in the U.S.
by way of example. One atomizer dedicated to refractory and C103, right? It positions us very, very uniquely. That was the board's perspective. Look, we're at a period of time in the market. The market is strong. There's a lot of interest in us thematically. We're two years into commercial engagement. We've got good visibility into this quarter. We've said $5.5 million Australian revenue for this quarter. We've said to the market, we've got very good visibility into next quarter's revenue. Lean into that, take advantage of this opportunity, and accelerate these growth initiatives. That's where the board came out.
Thank you. There's quite a few coming through, actually. Let me just jump into the next one. This one's on the U.S. Navy and Boeing scaling opportunity. Could you provide an update on the PM HIP work for the U.S. Navy or The Boeing Company development collaboration opportunity? Would you look to expand capacity in this area if you win a large contract?
Yes. PM HIP is a business that, and I really credit Eric Bono, Dr. Ron Amon, Fred Yalton, others on our team. I mean, we on our team are the pioneering experts in this area. Dr. Dave Schmidt, we've got the most advanced numerical model, more advanced than the U.S. National Labs, right? We've got something that is a very significant differentiated competitive advantage. That coincided with this demand signal because of the challenges that we have with forgings and castings. We began this engagement with the U.S. Navy over a year ago. I believe it was June of last year in the quarterly, and we didn't make a bigger deal out of it. We announced a $1.1 million contract. We have, during that time, produced a number of parts, worked on a number of programs.
We are now coming to the conclusion of delivering first articles, as I have announced. We haven't said for which U.S. Department of Defense Prime Contractor. We have not said the type of part. What I would simply say is it is a part that has got a very, very high qualification standard. We would expect to deliver those first articles in September or October. We'd expect to have those qualified by the end of the year. We have a number, plural, of production contracts in the wings upon successfully completing that qualification. Two things this really underscores, Jane. A, we're well ahead of many others, OK, getting first articles produced. It also underscores PM HIP is very advanced from a technical readiness level, a very advanced technology. The last jet plane you flew on had jet engine parts that were PM HIP manufactured.
The International Space Station has PM HIP manufactured parts, right? Satellites out today have PM HIP manufactured parts. You've got advanced TRL that allows for immediate, OK, again, immediate inclusion in the supply chain to relieve the challenges that we have with large forgings and large castings. Very exciting what we're doing with the U.S. Navy. Stay tuned. Yes, I think this will lead to other contracts. There's only one other company in the U.S. that's got the type of pioneering experience we have in this area. We're always looking at other opportunities. This is an area I think, you know, we've made a lot of continuing investments on the powder side of our business. We've now established a dominant first mover advantage and a significant moat around our business. Don't be surprised to see us next invest more heavily in the manufacturing side of our business, i.e. PM HIP.
Wonderful. I know we're running out of time slightly. I'll just jump into a couple more. This one's just on government grants. Is there any chance of a U.S. Department of Defense grant or something similar?
Great question. Those who have been following the budget cycle in the U.S., there's significant change underfoot right now. In the past, the primary granting authorities for large CapEx capabilities were Defense Production Act Title III or IBAS, Industrial Base Analysis and Sustainment Office. As you probably have been following, the Trump administration has restructured many parts of the U.S. Department of Defense, including a new Undersecretary of Acquisition and Sustainment, Michael Duffy. We expect that Title III and IBAS will be significantly restructured. That is the way that we make these federal grants. Moreover, in the most recent reconciliation bill, the $150 billion of additional money for defense programs, much of that was targeted for these federal grants. Yes, we are engaged with the U.S. Department of Defense. We are engaged at a senior level, and we have been for some time.
We think the capabilities, much of which are unique to Amaero Ltd, are very well aligned with the priority initiatives. The other thing that I would say, our Congressman Fleischmann, who is on the Appropriation Committee himself, has commented on this in the past. Senator Bill Haggerty, also on the Appropriation Committee, is very supportive of Amaero Ltd. I think you'll see congressional support for the company as well.
Hank, I know we're running out of time here, but I think, and a question I always ask, what's next? What should shareholders be looking out for for the next sort of three to six months?
Right. I would say, as we've been really, really clear, FY26 is the year of transition for Amaero, that we transition to scale production. We transition our commercial engagement and landing more contracts, and we transition to significant revenue. As we've mentioned before, albeit we haven't given revenue guidance, I believe most analysts out there have a revenue expectation, Australian dollars, of $30 to $35 million for Amaero in FY26. The company is very comfortable with that. We've given specific revenue guidance of $5.5 million for this quarter. We would expect that to grow modestly next quarter. I would expect about 40% of our revenue mix will be the first half of the year, about 60% of our revenue mix the back half of the year. Look for us to announce more commercial contracts. We are engaged with six or eight other parties.
We are also engaged in a number of government contracts. I would expect that we will have a number of, you know, one or two, I would expect a couple more contract announcements between now and the end of the calendar year. Obviously, we had one this quarter with Titomic. I would expect another few the back half of the year. By the time we get to the end of the fiscal year, I would expect that we would have six or eight long-term agreements, significant commercial contracts, and at that point have good visibility into FY27.
Wonderful. Hank, thanks so much for your time. I know we've run slightly over a bit. I think I note that a few people also had a few technical issues there. I think it was cutting out a little bit. If we have missed any of your questions, please feel free to reach out via the contact details on the bottom of our ASX releases. We look forward to hosting you again next time.
Good. Sorry for the reminder of any technical challenges. Thank you. Bye-bye.
Thanks everyone.