French private equity firm InfraVia Capital Partners and USA Rare Earth are investing more than US$93 million in Lyon-based Carester, giving each of them a 12.5% stake in the rare earth recycling and separation technology company.
Founded in 2019 by French chemical engineer and renowned rare earths processing expert, Frederic Carencotte, Carester last year secured €216 million (US$250 million) from Japan’s JOGMEC and Iwatani Corporation, and the French Government, to build an advanced rare earth recycling and refining plant in Lacq, in the south of France.
The facility is expected to be operational in the third quarter of this year.
It will recycle 2000 tonnes of magnets and refine 5000 tonnes of mining concentrates to produce up to 800 tonnes of neodymium-praseodymium (NdPr) oxide, 500t of dysprosium oxide and 100t of terbium oxide annually – equal to about 15% of current world supply of the heavy REs.
Carencotte, CEO of Carester, said this week the investment by InfraVia and USA Rare Earth would accelerate Carester’s development and help it secure access to heavy rare earth materials.
“InfraVia’s expertise in real asset investments and track record of supporting founder-led companies such as Carester make them an ideal investor as we enter this next phase of growth,” he said.
“We are also proud to partner with USA Rare Earth and see their willingness to expand the rare earth processing platform of Lacq that Carester started into metal-making and magnet production capabilities.”
The French Government is also providing financial backing for a Lacq rare earth metal and alloy plant being built by USA Rare Earth subsidiary Less Common Metals. The facility is expected to use rare earth oxides produced at Caremag.
USA Rare Earth CEO Barbara Humpton told analysts this week Carester was reviving historical French primacy in global rare earth processing, which it had ceded to China over the past three decades.
“The knowhow of Frederic and the Carester team is derived from a much earlier centre of excellence in the south of France,” Humpton said.
“This knowhow has not been used for decades now.
“[People] may not be aware just how critical this [processing] bottleneck is.
“While there are rare earth deposits around the world and while there are ultimately magnet makers around the world, these two links in the chain – the critical processing, especially of heavy rare earths, and metal-making – were the most fragile links in the value chain.
“Our acquisition of Less Common Metals was the first transformative acquisition, ensuring we would have that [metal-making] capability within our value chain and would be able to serve other downstream magnet makers.
“This [Carester investment] ensures we secure that other fragile link, the processing. Here is our opportunity to … accelerate and expand what Carester and Caremag are doing, strengthen that link in the chain, and ensure that deposits all around the world have access to this technology so that we’re able to supply heavy rare earths, light rare earths and other critical minerals where they are most needed.”
Humpton said USA Rare Earth expected to finalise a definitive investment agreement with Carester in about a month.
InfraVia CEO Vincent Levita said Carester had become a global “reference player” for cutting-edge green technologies.
“This initiative will strengthen a unique rare earth industrial ecosystem in Europe, leveraging France’s historical leadership in the sector, and is aligned with French Government effort to support industrial sovereignty and supply chain resilience,” he said.
InfraVia’s Critical Metals Fund, seed-funded by the French Government, has also invested in Australian lithium miner, Core Lithium.
