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Estonia

Neo Performance Materials

Rare earth and rare metal advanced materials in three segments: Magnequench, covering NdFeB magnetic powders, bonded magnets, sintered NdFeB magnets and soft magnetic components; Chemicals and Oxides, covering mid-stream separation and specialty chemicals; and Rare Metals, covering niobium, tantalum, rhenium, hafnium and gallium. In Europe the focal assets are Silmet at Sillamae, Estonia and the sintered NdFeB magnet plant at Narva, which operates under a partnership with Robert Bosch announced in September 2025.

At a glance

Founded

2017 — Incorporated in Ontario on 12 September 2017 and listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange on 8 December 2017, after Oaktree acquired the Neo business out of the Molycorp bankruptcy. The operating businesses are older: Magnequench was established by General Motors in 1986, and the Estonian Silmet plant was acquired by Molycorp in 2011.

Headquarters

Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Listed as TSX: NEO and quoted on OTCQX as NOPMF. The atlas lists it under Estonia for its Narva and Sillamae assets; the reporting entity is Canadian.

Ownership

Widely held. As of the March 2026 Annual Information Form no shareholder holds more than 10%. Wyloo acquired roughly 19.99% in February 2025 and exited entirely in October 2025. A strategic review begun in June 2024, which included assessing a sale of the company, concluded in May 2025 without a transaction.

Stage

Mature. Silmet has separated rare earths in Estonia for decades; the Narva magnet plant entered commercial production in September 2026 and is ramping.

Listing

TSX: NEO · OTC: NOPMF

Revenue

USD 478.8 million
Reported, FY2025, calendar year ended 31 December 2025.
Neo reports in United States dollars. Segment revenue: Magnequench USD 204.6 million, Chemicals and Oxides USD 135.0 million, Rare Metals USD 147.7 million. Magnequench is the closest thing to a magnet segment but is dominated by bonded NdFeB powders and also contains soft magnetic components and the new Narva plant; no revenue is published for the Narva sintered magnet operation on its own.
Source

Capacity

Each date below links to the document the figure came from. A capacity figure with no source is not on this page.

Narrative

Neo Performance Materials is a Toronto-headquartered, Toronto-listed producer of rare earth and rare metal materials, incorporated in Ontario in 2017. It reports in US dollars across three segments. Its Estonian operations anchor the group's European footprint: the Silmet plant at Sillamae separates rare earths and refines niobium, tantalum, rhenium and hafnium, and in April 2026 commissioned a small-scale heavy rare earth separation line for dysprosium and terbium. At Narva, Neo opened a sintered NdFeB magnet plant in September 2025 rated at 2,000 metric tons a year, with a Phase 1B expansion toward 5,000 tons under way. It also operates NdFeB powder and bonded magnet plants in China, Thailand and the United Kingdom, and reported FY2025 revenue of USD 478.8 million. In September 2026 Neo completed the sale of its Sarfartoq rare earth exploration project in Greenland, held through Neo North Star Resources, to Greenland Mines Ltd for US$35 million in cash and shares to all owners; Neo's subsidiary had held 43.47%, and Neo kept rights to up to 60% of any ore or concentrate the project produces, which Greenland Mines describes as non-binding.

Where public sources disagree

• Narva Phase 1B is described as planning activities in March 2026 and as under way in August 2026. The phase labels also differ: Neo uses Phase 1A and 1B, while Estonian government material uses Phase 1 and Phase 2. The tonnages agree.
• Investment figures for Narva come from Estonian government sources rather than from Neo, which confirms Just Transition Fund co-funding without stating an amount. Roughly EUR 100 million initial investment and a EUR 19 million grant are attributable to Invest in Estonia, not to the company.
• A statement at the Narva opening that the facility will satisfy up to 15% of EU demand for these magnets was made by a European Commissioner in a company press release. It is not derived from a filing or a published market study.
• Neo is not an SEC registrant. There are no 10-K or 20-F filings; primary documents are the Annual Information Form and financial statements on SEDAR+.

Latest reports

Across these reports

Across these four quarters Neo's quarterly revenue rose from US$122.2 million to US$205.7 million and Adjusted EBITDA from US$19.2 million to US$57.0 million, with 2026 guidance raised twice to US$140-150 million, while sales volume fell from 3,537 t to 3,221 t and total debt rose from US$89.9 million to US$157.2 million. The Silmet heavy rare earth line was commissioned on its early-2026 target and the Narva magnet plant remained at qualification-sample stage with commercial programs set for H2 2026.

Stated dates

Figures are as the company reported them, linked to each report. This summarizes what changed between reports; it is not a view on the company or its shares.

Fact checks from the digest

Claims made about this company that the weekly digest has put against this atlas, newest first. The verdict and the working are here in full; the issue each came from is for subscribers.

1. narrower than claimed · Digest issue 010 · 25 October 2026

   Rochester will separate the oxides; the metal is still somewhere else

   The claim — that Rochester will be “one of the largest rare earth separation operations in the world” — is narrower than it reads, on 2 counts.

   Scale. More than 4,400 metric tons a year of all separated oxides is less than half of Lynas Malaysia’s nameplate of 10,500 metric tons a year of NdPr alone. It is ahead of Neo Performance Materials’ Silmet plant in Estonia, at 3,200 metric tons a year nameplate. This check does not compare it with Chinese separators, which is where the world’s largest operations are.

   Basis. The 4,400 is total oxides, lanthanum and cerium included, with no NdPr split, and it is a 2028 figure for a plant not yet built. The Lynas and Silmet figures are nameplates at operating plants.

2. narrower than claimed · Digest issue 006 · 28 September 2026

   Japan has been building its way out of this since 2011, and the heavy half is eleven months old

   “China's near monopoly” is the framing every version of this story uses, and on the light elements it is simply true. On the heavies it is narrower than it sounds — and then, looked at closely, narrower again in the other direction.

   From this atlas: Lynas is the only company separating heavy rare earths at commercial scale outside China, and it got there recently — it first separated dysprosium and terbium oxides in Malaysia in 2025, and its heavy separation expansion is still under construction at up to 5,000 t/yr of heavy rare earth feedstock. How much dysprosium and terbium that actually yields is not public: Lynas reports heavy rare earths as a group and has never broken the two out. The others are smaller or not yet running. MP Materials' heavy circuit at Mountain Pass is 200 t/yr of Dy and Tb, nameplate, under construction. Solvay's dysprosium and terbium line at La Rochelle is under construction on a €15–20 million approval with no tonnage published. Neo's line at Silmet in Estonia, commissioned in April 2026, is a small-scale demonstration.

   And the fifteen-year framing needs the same discipline. For fourteen of those years this was a light-element arrangement, because NdPr from Mount Weld was what Lynas had to sell. Sojitz's first heavy rare-earth import from Lynas was 30 October 2025 — two months before China began squeezing Japan on dysprosium. Japan's heavy alternative is therefore not a hardened fifteen-year position. It is single-sourced and about eleven months old. Better than having nothing, which is what everybody else has. Nothing like enough.

3. it stands · Digest issue 005 · 21 September 2026

   A 3,750 metric ton a year metal and alloy plant at Lacq that the atlas did not have at all

   My claim, so it gets the same treatment. Two near misses, both on our own atlas, and neither one closes the gap. Neo's Silmet in Estonia separates to oxide at 3,200 t/yr nameplate — and carries no metal or alloy line. LCM's own Ellesmere Port makes 2,500 t/yr of metal and alloy — and does no separation. Each site does one of the two steps.

   Lacq would do both on one piece of ground. Japan already does, at Shin-Etsu's Takefu works, which is why the claim carries the awkward “outside Japan” rather than being tidier.

4. it does not stand · Digest issue 004 · 14 September 2026

   Narva ships its first commercial magnets, a year after the ribbon was cut

   Worth being precise about who claimed what. Neo did not say this was Europe’s first commercial NdFeB — its release says it has advanced to commercial production at its European magnet facility. The framing that traveled is the one that fails.

   Europe has made sintered neodymium magnets for decades, and both producers are on our own chart. Neorem has been at Ulvila since 1988. Vacuumschmelze has run sintered magnets at Hanau since 1973 — nine years before NdFeB was invented, so that line began on samarium cobalt and came to neodymium later. Ulvila is the date that bears on this claim, and it is thirty-eight years old. What is true, and better, is the denominator: EU-wide sintered NdFeB across every producer combined has been put at roughly 1,000 metric tons a year and described as not fully utilized. Narva at nameplate roughly triples it.

5. it stands · Digest issue 003 · 7 September 2026

   Lynas confirms it was in takeover talks

   It stands, and it is worth seeing exactly how narrow the gate is, because every word in it is load-bearing. MP Materials mines, separates NdPr and makes magnets — but its heavy circuit at Mountain Pass is 200 t/yr nameplate and under construction. Solvay separates NdPr and is building a heavy line at La Rochelle — but it does not mine. Neo separates at Silmet, runs a small-scale heavy line there and now makes magnets at Narva — but it does not mine either.

   So “integrated” and “operating” are what make the sentence true, and both of them expire the moment Mountain Pass commissions its heavy circuit.

6. narrower than claimed · Digest issue 002 · 31 August 2026

   Neo and Carester close a loop between Europe's only heavy separation plant and its only new magnet plant

   I called this the first visible attempt to source European heavy rare earths without a Chinese separation step. Our own atlas says otherwise, twice. Solvay's La Rochelle has a dysprosium and terbium line under construction on a €15 to 20 million investment, and Neo's own Silmet in Estonia already runs a small-scale heavy separation line for Dy and Tb.

   What is actually new is narrower and more useful: this is the first contracted arrangement between a European heavy separator and a European magnet plant, with the swarf going back the other way. The capability existed. The commercial link is the news.

7. it stands · Digest issue 001 · 24 August 2026

   Iluka's numbers are in the slide deck and not in the announcement

   Nobody claims a record here, but 750 t/yr of separated dysprosium and terbium invites one, so here is the comparison. On our own atlas: MP Materials’ heavy circuit at Mountain Pass is 200 t/yr nameplate, under construction. Solvay’s heavy line at La Rochelle is under construction with no tonnage published. Neo’s heavy line at Silmet is small-scale, commissioned in April 2026, with no tonnage published. Lynas separates dysprosium and terbium today, at commercial scale, but publishes no tonnage for either.

   So the 750 figure is the largest stated heavy rare-earth line outside China that I can find. It is also a design number in a slide deck for a plant that is 60 percent built, which is a different class of fact from what comes out of a running plant — even when the running plant does not publish it.

Sources

1. Annual Information Form 2026 — facility table, capacities, ownership, reporting currency — Neo Performance Materials Inc. (2026-03-19)
2. Fourth quarter 2025 results — Neo Performance Materials Inc. (2026-03-19)
3. Second quarter 2026 results — Neo Performance Materials Inc. (2026-08-11)
4. Neo opens permanent magnet facility in Europe — Neo Performance Materials Inc. (2025-09-22)
5. Heavy rare earth separation line commissioned at Silmet — Neo Performance Materials Inc. (2026-04-10)
6. Neo completes transfer of Sarfartoq interest — Neo Performance Materials (2026-09-02)

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