Hello and welcome to the presentation of IBC Advanced Alloys Corp. My name is Joe Dorame, Managing Partner of Lytham Partners, and today I'll be moderating a Q&A discussion after the presentation by Mark Smith, Executive Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. IBC Advanced Alloys trades on the TSX Venture under the ticker IBC. Let's get started. Mark, welcome, and please introduce yourself and walk us through the company's investor presentation.
Very good, Joe. Thanks for the opportunity today. I am Mark Smith. I'm the Executive Chairman and CEO of IBC Advanced Alloys. It's a very unique company and I hope you see the brilliance of this company by the time we're done with this presentation today. It does some things for the United States that nobody else in the business does. Very proud of that, and we'll get into those details now. Just a little bit about IBC on the front end to kind of put this in perspective. IBC produces primarily copper and copper alloy products, but it's also moving very quickly now into the production of aluminum-scandium alloys.
This would be about anywhere from 0.1% to 0.2% scandium contained in the aluminum. When you add that amount of scandium into the aluminum, it increases the yield strength of the resulting alloy compared to aluminum by itself, increases corrosion resistance, makes it weldable, and the resulting alloy is actually lighter than the aluminum itself too. There's many, many applications. I'll get into more details on that soon. We are the only United States company that actually casts and forges copper and copper alloy products in the United States as our primary business. We have a group of metallurgical engineers that I would put up against anybody in the world. Their technical expertise is second to none.
A lot of customers come in with, you know, requests for quotations on this part or that part. Our engineers take the time to look at the part, what its purpose is, what its function is going to be. More often than not, we suggest a different alloy mix than what the customer has asked for, explain why, and then we end up with a very good relationship, both technically and production-wise, with that customer. So we really like to service our customers to the maximum extent. I kinda have to read this last bullet point, and I apologize, but the terms are very sensitive.
In addition to all the things I've talked about, you know, this is a vertically integrated facility that can do casting, forging, both hammer, press, and ring rolling, and heat treating and machining operations. We can make billets, we can make ingots, we can make your finished part. It depends on what your needs are as a company. Next slide, Jim. Very quickly on the left, these are the highlights that we'll be going through in more detail as we go into some additional slides. Bottom line is that we feel quite strongly that there is a second copper super cycle coming, and what a great place to be as IBC with that copper super cycle now starting to take shape.
We'll cover all of these points in more detail in just a minute. Little bit of information on the company off to the right here. Nothing, you know, out of the ordinary. Traded on the TSXV, also traded on OTCQB, and then you can see our outstanding shares and some additional share information down on the lower right-hand side. If we take a look at the next slide, you can see our stock performance as of recently, and you can see that somebody has taken notice of what we do and is starting to reward us for that. I think we have a lot more to come in that regard, and I hope you'll join me in that thinking as we finish up this presentation today.
Next slide shows the financial results for the end of the year, December 31, 2025. We do operate on a fiscal year that starts July 1, so we have the six months by the end of that fiscal year. Here, here's the results. I think what you can see at the end of the day is that we are starting to see the benefits of the turnaround activities that we've been undertaking for some period of time now, trying to get our traction back in the market. COVID was a big hit to us as a company, and we're now starting to see all of that fade away, and we're starting to repeat where we were prior to COVID and growing from there.
Let's get into kind of some of the important things next as well here. The diversity of the markets that we serve is really outstanding. Except for things like COVID that affect everything, this is a very nice place to be. If one of these areas, you know, goes through a little bit of a downturn, you know, another one is going through an upturn. It's really a nice way to keep your revenues and your EBITDA and cash flow at a very steady, reliable pace. We serve every single one of these markets and have multiple customers in each of these sectors. Next slide shows just how diverse our customer base is.
This is a very small handful of the customers that we serve out of IBC, and in fact, we have well over 160 different customers that we serve from this business. That shows you we have diversity of markets, we have diversity of customers, and I think the word diversity is just one of those risk mitigation measures that a company can never quite implement enough, just to lower the risk overall in your business. Having this many markets to serve and having this many customers to serve is a real benefit for us, and it'll be even more of a benefit as we move forward.
The next slide, we're gonna start talking about the growth strategy now that we kind of have our feet underneath us again and we're growing based on that foundational business that we've had for 60+ years. We have, you know, some growth activities that we're pursuing with a lot of effort right now. There's a four-step growth effort. First thing is we wanna expand our production of the near-net shape copper alloy cast products. We'll show you some examples of that in a minute. We also want to launch the casting of copper-nickel and aluminum bronze alloys, again, in this near-net shape cast products. We want to continue to work on the production of cast as well as forged parts made with the aluminum-scandium alloy.
This is a brand new business for IBC and one that they have shown extreme promise in already. Ultimately, we want to expand sales to the U.S. Navy. I think the U.S. government has been pretty transparent about the fact that we need to put a lot more money into the U.S. Navy. We're falling behind in terms of technology, in terms of numbers of ships, in terms of numbers of submarines. The U.S. government is putting a tremendous amount of money into the Navy to bring it back up to par with other countries. We're feeling the benefits of that already, largely because copper-nickel alloys, aluminum bronze alloys, as well as aluminum-scandium alloys will be a big part of that U.S. Navy uplift.
Let's start talking a little bit before we get into some of these sectors that we're gonna be growing into. Let's talk about the new copper super cycle. We see, you know, us entering into a really kind of a multi-decade, not just a multi-year, multi-decade demand upcycle for copper. Because we have now the ability to not only make the copper alloys but to actually make near-net shape copper alloy parts, we're seeing the demand for those parts in particular really starting to take off. With the large increase in the U.S. naval defense buildup, that's just helping that demand side grow more and more.
Let's talk, get into the next slide and talk a little bit more about this copper super cycle that we see. If we take a look at the timeframe from 1999 to 2012, you can see that the global demand for copper grew at an unbelievably good rate. You can also see that the price for copper also took off with that increased demand. We saw an increased demand of over 46% during this timeframe, and we saw price increases of over 406% during this timeframe. It was a very good time indeed for those people that are in the copper industry.
Now, if we take a look at the next slide, we'll see what just about every metals expert is forecasting for the copper industry from 2024 through 2025. You can see that we're looking at a supply line there. It's a blue line. You can see what the total demand is and what the supply deficit is going to be. We're going to have the need for more copper, and we know that there are many companies out there trying to figure out how to produce more copper. But the one thing that you do learn as you take economics courses is that when demand is greater than supply, that also as a general rule means increased pricing for those products.
We are expecting yet another copper super cycle to occur here in the next call it 9-10 years. It's all being driven by U.S. consumption and a large part of that going as naval parts. We anticipate the forecasted demand to increase by 63%, and we'll see what happens to the price as a result of that increased demand. What does that mean then for IBC? Well, it means that the raw copper supply will be tight, which means we're gonna have higher pricing and higher margins. We have long-standing relationships with copper suppliers that we will take advantage of during this timeframe, and we have an excellent track record with all of them as well.
I think we'll be in a good position in terms of purchasing our feedstock. What we are seeing now is that it's not just a matter of making billets or making ingots of these different alloys. What we're seeing is that customers want precision copper products to be utilized in their end use products. It's meant to solve multiple problems. Everybody kind of has a bespoke recipe that they want for their applications and because they'll have different reliability, corrosion or thermal and conductivity challenges that they're trying to meet. By utilizing different precision copper products, you can meet those requirements with your part. We're anxious for this whole demand cycle to continue to grow and allow U.S. companies like IBC to take advantage of it. Okay.
Now we would like to get into a little bit more detail on each of these stages of our growth plan. This one shows how we have the capability of making these near-net shape parts from the copper and bronze alloys that the company can produce. The part on the right is one that we actually did cast. It is a near-net shape part. We can do these parts upwards of about 500 pounds each. That gives us quite a spectrum of parts and quite a list of companies that have demands for these parts. We're seeing a growth in this business as we speak.
This is an exciting new area for us to be in, and it allows us to get closer and closer to the customer and utilize our technical expertise to help them more and more. Next slide shows where IBC was actually producing, for the first time ever, these aluminum-scandium alloy ingots. This was a pretty proud moment in the company's history. As I mentioned, this is the first time they'd ever tried to produce and then pour this alloy. I'm happy to report that we took multiple samples of the production line as they were producing, and IBC hit every single specification for this alloy spot on. I've been in the scandium business for some period of time now.
There are very few companies I'm aware of that have hit this level of specification on the first time that they ever tried it. I think it goes again to really, you know, support the concept that we have some of the best technical people in the business. They hit it the first time. Now, I've asked them to run this again 'cause I wanna make sure we can do it reliably for our customers, and we hope to have another pour here in the very near future. This should also allow us to make some near net shape components out of this alloy as well, the aluminum scandium alloy. It allows the business to grow, and we're seeing the demand for this aluminum scandium alloy really pick up in the world today.
People are starting to understand the benefits that this alloy brings. Next slide. Stage three of our growth effort. This is where we are attempting to purchase and add an additional furnace to our foundry right now. This would be a Vacuum Cap furnace, and it would allow us to make copper-nickel and Aluminum bronze alloys that you can't make in an open top furnace. When we did our upgrading project a couple of years back and we built a new foundry on site, we actually left a spot in the line of production where we can add this Vacuum Cap furnace fairly easily. A lot of the infrastructure is already there. We just need to purchase the furnace.
We've already invested about $500,000 into the support infrastructure. We're working with the U.S. government in an effort to help fund the purchase of this furnace. That will really get us going on the production of these different C level materials you can see in the second bullet point. It's interesting to note that currently the United States imports about 90% of the C type alloys that we need, particularly in naval applications. Getting this Vacuum Cap furnace in the United States, having IBC operate it with their level of technical expertise will be a real benefit to the country and to the Navy in particular. Next slide is the final step of our growth.
By the way, that stage three growth, we would hope to have that complete sometime in, say, the next three years. Stage four would be kind of a year 3 - 5 timeframe. This stage involves the purchase of a radial forging machine, and it allows us to take the materials, the alloys that we would produce in that Vacuum Cap furnace as part of stage three and now convert that alloy to shapes and sizes that the end-use customer would like to have in their operations. You can see that we can do alloy rounds, we can do bars, we'd be able to do hollows, anywhere from 1 to 6 diameter shapes, and that's because of this radial forging machine. This is a little bit more costly.
This is about a $25 million expenditure. The estimated demand, forecasted demand and estimated demand that's out there, and running just portions of that through the new Vacuum Cap furnace and ultimately through the radial forging furnace, gives us very, very strong confidence in growing the company quite significantly, as we undertake these growth efforts. Let me also say before we go to the final slides here that I mentioned earlier, IBC has a very strong, what we call foundational business. That foundational business has been growing anywhere from 2% to 6% per year, except in the COVID years. We're starting to see that growth come back into the company on that foundational business. We do view the IBC business as very strong in terms of that foundational business.
We're gonna continue to grow that at 2%-6% per year. These four growth stages that we're talking about are going to allow the company to grow at what we hope will be double-digit compounded annual growth rates going forward. This is an exciting time to come into IBC. We've got the people we need to make this happen. We're raising the money, and we're getting support from the U.S. government to allow these growth stages to occur in fairly short order. I think IBC's future looks awful promising as a result of that. The next two slides are just you know the people of the company, which are you know arguably the most important part. We have a board of directors here that has been working together for a very long time.
The whole culture of the board is one of trust and honesty and integrity, and we do everything we can. In my time as chairman, I'm happy to say we have made every decision on a consensus basis. I think that's the right way to do it. Next slide shows the senior management team. Much like the board, this is a group of people that have worked together for a very long time. The whole culture of the company is trust and honesty and integrity. Again, we really try hard to make all of our decisions on a consensus basis. We vet things and make sure we're making the right decisions on behalf of the company and the shareholders. With that, Joe, that finishes what we have for the presentation.
I'd be happy to answer any questions.
All right. Great. Well, thanks for that impressive overview. I guess first of all, I mean, during your tenure as CEO of IBC Advanced Alloys, you know, what has been the most important strategic inflection point in the company's journey, and what are you most proud of at this point?
You know, it'll sound a little bit negative on the front end as I go through this, Joe, but bear with me. We used to have another operating division in the company too. It was called EMC for Engineered Materials Company. That was a company that took beryllium aluminum, alloyed it together and made parts, and very proudly I might add, made parts for the F-35 jet. What we discovered after putting a tremendous amount of money, time, and resources into that business was that there just was not a big enough market to allow for the growth that we expected and our shareholders expected.
It was a very dark day, but we did make a very difficult decision to shut that business down, and we realized how opportunistic the copper division is, which is what we have remaining in the company today. That base business I talked about just a few minutes ago, strong and thriving today, and the ability to grow the copper business because of this new copper supercycle is going to offer us an opportunity that we simply could not ignore. We basically got rid of the burden of the EMC division, which was hard to do.
You know, it affects people, and that's always a hard thing. At the same time, I feel really confident and happy about where we're headed and focusing on the copper side of our business, which has always been the most reliable, the most productive part of our business. We're gonna see a really nice turnaround 'cause we're focused on what we do well and the part of the business that performs the best.
That's great to hear. You know, recently, IBC accomplished an important milestone demonstrating the ability to produce aluminum scandium alloy using master alloy from NioCorp Developments.
Yes.
How significant is this achievement? What do investors need to know about that?
It's a huge advancement for the country as a whole. NioCorp will take care of certain parts of the supply chain in terms of bringing the entire scandium supply chain onshore. We have zero of that supply chain onshore today. We've been working hard with NioCorp. We have a joint development agreement with them. What NioCorp realized early on is that they can do the mining, they can produce the oxide. They've made asset and intellectual property purchases, so they can produce the master alloy. IBC has the in-house existing capabilities to take that master alloy and to produce the finished alloy and probably ultimately near-net shape parts for customers down the road here.
IBC becomes an extremely important part of this whole onshoring effort to bring scandium into the United States and take care of both our commercial and our defense needs. We've sent a press release out on this already with the first successful
Production of alloy that IBC did, very first time they tried. You'll be seeing more and more from the company in this regard as they perfect their capabilities to make the alloy, and then we find more and more customers who wanna utilize the material science capabilities that aluminum scandium alloys present.
Great. What does this unlock in terms of commercial opportunities, and what end markets do you see as your early adopters for this new material?
You know, we see a lot of end markets. You know, I can mention a couple of them right off the bat. The Navy. You know, scandium aluminum alloys tend to have a very high degree of corrosion resistance associated with them. So you can substitute scandium aluminum alloys for other more expensive alloys. You can probably end up with a lighter alloy, and that allows your ship to go farther on either a battery charge or a tank of fuel. So you're gonna see that application, I think, quite prevalent, largely because of that corrosion resistance.
You'll also see it in the aerospace and the space industry, and a lot of that has to do with the corrosion resistance, but the light weight that scandium aluminum offers to the end use application as opposed to aluminum by itself. We're seeing many potential applications start to arise in terms of replacements for structural components like graphite parts and whatnot.
A lot of that just has to do with the cost-benefit analysis. The scandium aluminum material can be produced, and it can be utilized in a cheaper way than what some of these other materials of construction that they're using today. If you can make it cheaper and make it stronger, make it more corrosion resistant and make it lighter, you've got a whole bunch of wins there that the end use applications are looking for. I think those are the areas that we're gonna see a lot of applications.
The 3D printing industry is another one where scandium aluminum is gonna be a huge part of that industry going forward, and that. I mean, when I take a look at where the parts production industry is going, it's going to 3D production. Having the ability to make the scandium aluminum wires or powders that the 3D printing industry needs and looks for, that's gonna be very powerful for our company as well.
Great. That's good to hear. How are tariffs impacting your outlook on your copper alloys division?
You know, for the most part, we haven't seen a big impact on that. Like everybody else when they first hit, it was an unknown, and we had to figure out what it meant. Fortunately, we either have U.S. suppliers where the tariffs did not apply, or because of the format in which we're purchasing the copper, it actually ended up being exempt from those tariffs. We were able to benefit from that. I think that we're actually seeing more and more U.S. consumers of the materials that we're involved in understand that we're in that very nice position in terms of really almost zero tariff impact, and we're seeing more demand arise as a result of that.
Great. I guess we've got time for one last question. You know, looking forward, what are the keys to success that investors should be looking for in 2026?
You know, I think it's all about just continuing to execute right now. I love the foundational program and production that we have in the company today. It's been there for a long time, has come back to its pre-COVID levels, and yet we have a really solid growth program as well with a four-part growth program that I just have zero doubt that it's going to be successful because, you know, in the U.S. we're trying to onshore more and more of our capabilities, and that's what our four-step growth program is all about. We're onshoring things that are otherwise done outside of the United States today, and oftentimes those things are done in hostile places. This is exactly the