USSM and Ionic Rare Earths Bet Big on Recycled Magnets

US Strategic Metals and Ionic Rare Earths USA have signed a joint venture term sheet to build what the companies are calling the first U.S. rare earth permanent magnet recycling facility. It would sit at USSM's fully permitted processing campus near Fredericktown, Missouri.

The deal replaces an MOU the two companies signed in November 2025 at the Australian Embassy in Washington, D.C. This time, they're putting numbers on paper.

Show Me the Money

The JV is structured as a 50-50 partnership. The two sides intend to fund it with $100 million for construction of the initial neodymium-iron-boron and samarium-cobalt recycling facilities.

USSM is contributing $95 million in direct funding. On top of that, USSM and Ionic USA are each putting in $2.5 million as part of a separate $5 million equity contribution, split evenly. That equity piece is earmarked to complete front end engineering design and push demonstration-scale recycling forward.

The joint venture will be governed by a five-member board, with USSM appointing three seats and Ionic USA appointing two. Ionic USA chairs the Technical Operations Committee and takes the lead on technical, operational, and commercial matters, feedstock procurement included.

Ionic Technologies, the company's Belfast subsidiary, is proposed to contribute a non-exclusive license covering magnets, magnet scrap, and other heavy rare earth bearing compounds. The facilities would process recycled NdFeB and SmCo magnets and scrap. The JV also intends to evaluate recovery of additional heavy rare earths, including europium, gadolinium, holmium, erbium, thulium, lutetium, and yttrium.

Building on What's Already Built

The 1,750-acre Fredericktown site is not a blank slate. USSM is building capacity there for alloy-grade cobalt, antimony sulfide, nickel metal, lithium carbonate, copper cathode, and rare earth elements. Slotting magnet recycling into that footprint means separated rare earth oxide production lands inside USSM's broader multi-metallic campus rather than starting from raw dirt.

“USSM is focused on being a leader in the establishment of supply chains for critical minerals and heavy rare earths and this agreement is a major step toward achieving our vision,” said Stacy W. Hastie, Co-Founder and CEO of USSM. “IonicRE has proven the capability of its rare earth permanent magnet recycling technology; now is the time to apply this on an industrial scale.”

“The United States is the world's biggest economy with the unmatched financial firepower and industrial know-how to drive development of this key technology,” said Brett Lynch, Executive Chairman of Ionic Rare Earths. “We are delighted to upgrade our previously announced memorandum of understanding with USSM with the intention of building our first U.S. facility in Missouri in building a secure rare earths supply chain.”

The two sides are working toward definitive agreements, which they intend to complete by the end of 2026. The JV itself is still non-binding, contingent on those agreements, both parties' capital contributions, and additional documentation getting finalized.

The site is the real advantage here, not the check size. A fully permitted, multi-metallic campus removes a variable that trips up plenty of critical minerals projects before they break ground.

For subs and suppliers, the read is patience paired with attention. Definitive agreements are still pending, so nothing here is a green light yet, but FEED work tends to be where technical relationships quietly start forming ahead of formal bid packages.

Feedstock sourcing is worth watching too. Recycling operations generally run on secured scrap supply, and that relationship is worth tracking as the JV moves toward its 2026 target.

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