ION appoints a VP in North America with commercial battery recycling experience

Our recycling Investment Iondrive (ASX: ION) has just announced the appointment of Kevin Hobbie as its new VP North America.

The role is new and it's designed for one thing to accelerate the commercialisation of ION's IONSolv technology into the US market.

Given that ION now has a US based leader to oversee operations there, we think that this is meaningful considering the context of where ION is right now.

ION's main focus over the next 12 or so months is gaining traction in the US, through proving it’s pilot plant works and ongoing relationships such as the one announced last year with Colt.

Kevin Hobbie has previously built out, commissioned and run first production at a commercial-scale battery recycling plant in the United States.

That facility actually produced battery-grade precursor materials (pCAM) from recycled feedstock.

So he has done something similar before and no doubt has more than a few contacts in the industry that would be able to help ION expand its presence.

These are the key areas of focus for for Mr Hobbie from today’s announcement:

(source)

For ION - which is currently building its own pilot plant and aiming to scale up commercially across battery materials, e-waste, and rare earths, this operational experience looks like a great fit.

He is someone who can turn the progress ION has already made (Colt agreement, DOE positioning, rare earths recovery data) into expanding revenue and aid this with US government grant funding.

In our recent article last week, we laid out why we think critical minerals recycling and processing tech will be one of the biggest beneficiaries of the east/west supply chain divide.

We know that the US specifically is spending big to rebuild a domestic critical minerals supply chain.

There are 2 main sources for supply in a supply chain, look in the ground where it might be or look inside the waste products that you know these critical minerals and other valuable materials already exist.

ION is targeting the eWaste products, so it already knows where there are critical minerals.

So today’s announcement helps to fill in some of the dots form our recent article, ION currently has:

• A binding US rare earths recycling agreement with Colt Recycling (part of Elemental Holding Group - 20+ countries, 40M lbs of US eWaste per year).
• 93.8% Nd and 95.1% Pr recovery results on end-of-life magnet materials announced in April.
• The US Department of Energy's ~US$1BN in grant funding pools for critical minerals demonstration and commercial facilities - ~US$635M of which we think ION's tech could fit into.
• Minerals recycling explicitly called out in the US$8.5BN US-Australia critical minerals framework from October 2025.
• Participation in an Australian Government-led delegation to the US last year, meeting with US officials, defence reps and innovation leaders.

All of the above makes a lot more sense to be driving these initiatives with someone US based.

As having someone in the US to drive this would likely be better for negotiations and developing relationships there.

ION’s CEO Lewis Utting was also quoted in the announcement:

(source)

Why we think it lines up with ION's next re-rate catalysts

Our previous article laid out the catalysts that could re-rate ION's market cap from its current ~$32M. The top three were:

1. US rare earths partnership - progressing the Colt agreement into commercial rollout.
2. Pilot plant commissioning - ION's Q4 2026 target.
3. Mineral processing tech getting de-risked - news across cobalt (Latitude 66, Finland) and nickel (US feedstock).
4. Application into new markets - ION can apply its technology across a wide range of critical minerals and other materials

A VP North America with a background that literally "built and commissioned a commercial-scale battery recycling plant in the US" should be great experience to progress points 1 & 2.

And the explicit mention of state-level incentives and federal grant opportunities in today's announcement suggests ION is sharpening its focus on the DOE funding pools we've been watching.

We also came across a Taylor Collison research report that listed ION with a Spec buy recommendation and it went into much more detail than a usual research report.

Obviously these research reports should be taken with caution, but the report spanned 19 pages and we feel it outlayed ION’s plan and progress well.

So we may see some more eyes on ION in coming days/weeks.

You can check out the research report on ION's website:

Iondrive Limited (ION: ASX) Sol(vent)ing Critical Problems (Taylor Collison)

What’s next for ION?

ION had a new updated presentation out today - here is the key slide on what’s next:

(check out the full presentation here)

Below are the next bunch of catalysts that we think could re-rate ION’s valuation from where it is today.

But before we dive in, let's be clear - there’s no guarantee ION re-rates in the future, it's a high risk, small cap stock.

OK here’s what could happen that could see a re-rate:

US rare earths partnership (possibly the most market topical right now)

ION will now test its tech on e-waste feedstock to see if it can commercially recover rare earths. Today’s announcement showed it can recover it from end of life magnets which is a positive signal it could work on things like e-waste.

Pilot plant build commissioning

We think this will be a big inflection point for ION, because it takes ION’s tech out of the lab and into a pilot plant. ION expects to have the plant commissioned by Q4 2026. Here is a handy slide showing how valuations re-rate when tech goes out of the lab and into pilot plants:

(source)

Again, to be clear, ION is a small cap speculative investment, there’s no guarantee its valuation will rise in the future.

ION’s mineral processing tech gets de-risked

Any news across the multiple mineral processing testworks ION is doing right now could trigger a re-rate in ION’s share price - especially if it’s in a material that the market is looking for exposure to (ION is testing cobalt and nickel to begin with and then hopefully many more critical minerals).

Application into new markets

ION is aiming to recover copper, gold, silver, osmium and rare earth elements from e-waste (Printed Circuit Boards). Results from these tests could come at arbitrary times. We could see the market re-rate ION if the results are positive.

Again - these are just potential re-rate catalysts - there’s no guarantee that A. the company achieves them, and B. even if it does, the market may not care.