Vacuumschmelze (VAC)

Sintered rare-earth permanent magnets in both NdFeB, sold as VACODYM, and SmCo, sold as VACOMAX, alongside soft magnetic alloys, inductive components and cores. The company states roughly 85% of output is made to customer specification, for EV traction motors, wind generators, industrial automation, medical, aerospace and defense.

Points to check

Facts from the sources on this page that a reader should weigh before relying on the company's own figures.

Energy Fuels' 8-K of 13 October 2026 says the Sumter plant was constructed in connection with an offtake agreement, that a dispute with the customer over compensation for underutilized production capacity arose in April 2026, that the customer gave notice of termination on 1 July 2026, and that e-VAC began arbitration on 7 July 2026 seeking a declaration that the termination was wrongful. GM's quarterly report for the period ended 30 September 2026 says that in July 2026 a supplier of a component for EV traction motors initiated an arbitration seeking damages after GM terminated a strategic sourcing agreement; neither filing names the other party, and the amount claimed is not disclosed. Reuters reported on 23 October 2026, citing a person with knowledge of the matter, that GM canceled its long-term supply deal with the plant and is the customer in the arbitration, and that VAC's chief executive had said in September 2025 that about 90% of Sumter's output was set to go to GM, with the rest for the US government. VAC recognizes no asset for the claim, and the filing says new customer contracts may require significant capital expenditure.

At a glance

Founded: 1923 — Founded 1 July 1923 when W. C. Heraeus spun off its melting and processing department; Siemens & Halske took a majority stake in 1933 and held it for decades.
Headquarters: Hanau, Germany
Ownership: Private. Owned by Ara Partners since October 2023, acquired from funds managed by Apollo. Earlier owners include Siemens, Morgan Crucible, One Equity Partners and OM Group. Neorem Magnets of Finland has been a subsidiary since 2007, and e-VAC Magnetics of Sumter, South Carolina is its US subsidiary. On 23 June 2026 Energy Fuels announced a definitive agreement to acquire VAC for approximately USD 1.9 billion; the transaction had not closed as of 15 October 2026. A first amendment to the merger agreement, signed on 13 October 2026, covers a dispute with an e-VAC customer, the repayment of certain debt and related purchase price adjustments.
Stage: Mature. Makes NdFeB and SmCo magnets in Hanau for decades; Energy Fuels agreed to buy it in June 2026.
Listing: Private. Owned by Ara Partners; Energy Fuels agreed to buy it (closing expected early 2027).
Revenue: EUR 325.1 million
Reported, financial year 2025.
Audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers GmbH (report dated 19 June 2026) and published as an exhibit to Energy Fuels' 8-K of 13 October 2026, the first time VAC's accounts have been public. 2024: EUR 353.5 million. First half of 2026: EUR 211.5 million, against EUR 156.9 million a year earlier (unaudited). Net loss after tax: EUR 87.9 million in 2025, EUR 96.8 million in 2024 and EUR 57.4 million in the first half of 2026. The Permanent Magnets division, which spans Hanau, Ulvila, Horna Streda and Sumter, had revenue of about EUR 79 million in 2025 at a gross margin of about 10.4%, and EUR 82.4 million in the first half of 2026 against EUR 34.1 million a year earlier, making it the largest division. Earlier datapoint: OM Group's 2011 release gave sales of EUR 423 million for the twelve months to 30 June 2011.
Source

Capacity

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

What	Figure	Status	As of
Sintered NdFeB, e-VAC Magnetics, Sumter, South Carolina	approximately 2,000 t/yr, and the acquirer says it can go to 4,000 t/yr without additional infrastructure. Whether the plant is running at 2,000 t/yr or has it installed is not clear from public sources: 130 of a planned 300 staff were in place at the July 2026 opening.	Operating	Oct 2026
Sumter expansion headroom, as stated by the acquirer	scalable to 12,000 t/yr, which the acquirer says would need additional capital and would follow only from further offtake contracts	Announced	Oct 2026
Permanent magnets, Hanau, Germany — the acquirer's figure, from Energy Fuels' 8-K; VAC publishes no tonnage	1,000 t/yr	Operating	Oct 2026
Permanent magnets, Ulvila, Finland (Neorem Magnets) — the acquirer's figure	500 tons; the filing gives no annual qualifier for this line, unlike Hanau's	Operating	Oct 2026
Hanau, the other process steps — the acquirer's figures	melt shop 8,000 t/yr, cold rolling 6,000 t/yr, rapid solidification 3,950 t/yr	Operating	Oct 2026
Horna Streda, Slovakia — the acquirer's figures	rapid solidification slitting 633 t/yr; crystalline 230,000 hours; permanent magnets 23,500 hours (PCU26) and 32,300 hours (PCU32)	Operating	Oct 2026

Narrative

Vacuumschmelze, founded in Hanau in 1923 as a Heraeus spin-off, produces soft magnetic alloys, inductive components and sintered rare-earth permanent magnets in both NdFeB and SmCo. Siemens took a majority stake in 1933 and held it for decades; the company later passed to Morgan Crucible and then through successive private-equity owners, reaching Ara Partners in 2023. It acquired Finland's Neorem Magnets in 2007 and operates plants at Hanau, Ulvila and Horna Streda, employing about 4,000 people. Its US subsidiary e-VAC Magnetics runs a magnet plant at Sumter, South Carolina, rated at about 2,000 metric tons a year and backed by USD 94.1 million of Department of Defense funding. In June 2026 Energy Fuels agreed to acquire VAC for about USD 1.9 billion. VAC buys NdFeB alloy from the Korean Metals Plant in South Korea, now owned by Energy Fuels: Australian Strategic Materials reported binding purchase orders from VAC for 7.2 t, delivered in stages from July 2025.

Where public sources disagree

The Energy Fuels acquisition has not closed, and Energy Fuels' own statements on timing differ: its 23 June 2026 release expects closing in early 2027, while VAC's management discussion filed with its 8-K of 13 October 2026 says the deal is expected to close within 12 months, measured from the June signing. The 8-K's risk factors say foreign investment reviews could restrict magnet sales; no German decision or condition has been published.
The European capacity figures are the acquirer's, not VAC's. Energy Fuels published site-level capacities for Hanau, Ulvila and Horna Streda in its 8-K of 13 October 2026, in its discussion of the acquisition; VAC has not restated them. Hanau's 1,000 t/yr and Ulvila's 500 tons together already exceed the roughly 1,000 t/yr EU-wide aggregate in the 2021 European Raw Materials Alliance report, and no source reconciles the two.
VAC describes itself as the only Western manufacturer of sintered NdFeB EV-grade magnets and the largest producer of rare earth permanent magnets in the Western Hemisphere. Those are company claims, and MP Materials and Noveon have both started sintered NdFeB production in the United States since they were made.
The ownership chain between Siemens and One Equity Partners is poorly documented. VAC's own history says Morgan Crucible bought it in the mid-1990s; other accounts give 1999 to 2005. No primary source was located for either date.
The Sumter plant's commissioning dates differ across sources: online in late autumn 2025 per South Carolina Commerce in December 2023, completed late fall 2025 per VAC in April 2024, and commercial production beginning in fall 2025 with a formal opening on 15 July 2026 per e-VAC.

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.

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.

Sources

Company history — VACUUMSCHMELZE GmbH & Co. KG (accessed 2026-09-18)
Ara Partners acquires Vacuumschmelze — VACUUMSCHMELZE (2023-10-10)
Energy Fuels definitive agreement to acquire VAC — Energy Fuels Inc. (2026-06-23)
e-VAC Sumter plant opening — e-VAC Magnetics / VAC (2026-07)
e-VAC to build first US facility in Sumter County — South Carolina Department of Commerce (2023-12-13)
OM Group completes acquisition of Vacuumschmelze — OM Group via PR Newswire (2011-08-02)
Sales momentum builds at KMP — Australian Strategic Materials (2025-06-06)
Form 10-Q, quarter ended 30 June 2026 — Energy Fuels Inc. / SEC (2026-08)
Form 8-K: first amendment to the VAC merger agreement, and VAC's business and capacity — Energy Fuels Inc. (SEC) (2026-10-13)
Exhibit 99.1: audited consolidated financial statements, FY2025 and FY2024 — Energy Fuels Inc. (SEC) (2026-10-13)
Exhibit 99.2: unaudited interim financial statements, H1 2026 — Energy Fuels Inc. (SEC) (2026-10-13)
GM cancels deal with new US rare-earth magnet plant, documents say (Reuters) — Reuters via MINING.COM (2026-10-23)
Form 10-Q, quarter ended 30 September 2026 — General Motors Co., via SEC (2026-10)

How this page is sourced

Everything here comes from public sources — company filings, annual reports, exchange announcements, government releases and trade press. Every figure is linked to the document it came from and carries the date that document was published, because a capacity number without a date is not a fact, it is a rumor with a decimal point.

What is deliberately absent: material nonpublic information. I have spent more than two decades in this industry and a good deal of what I know about these companies I learned under NDA. Those obligations do not expire and they do not bend for a website. Nothing I have been told in confidence appears here in any form, and nothing on this page — or missing from it — should be read as a signal about what I know privately. I hold NDAs absolutely. It is the reason clients tell me things.

Judgment is the other thing left out on purpose. This page reports what has been published and who published it. Whether a target is credible, whether a ramp will hold, whether a capacity figure survives contact with the plant behind it — that is the work I do for clients, and it does not belong in a free reference page.

Where public sources disagree, I say so rather than picking a winner. Where a figure has not been published, the field says so rather than carrying an estimate. An empty field is information too.

Public filings tell you what a company has said. Whether it holds up is a different question, and the one I get hired to answer.

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