Amaero International Limited, an Australian supplier of metal powders used for advanced manufacturing, with corporate and manufacturing headquarters in southeastern Tennessee, has received a $23.5 million loan from the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM). EXIM’s board of directors approved the loan to Amaero International’s wholly-owned US subsidiary, Amaero Advanced Materials & Manfuacturing, as part of the Make More in America (MMIA) Initiative, approved in 2022 as a means to support American manufacturing enterprises, especially small and medium businesses.
The sixth MMIA loan thus far, the $23.5 million to Amaero is the first from the program to go to an additive manufacturing (AM) company. Amaero will use the funds, which come with a favorable cost of capital of around 7 percent, for capital equipment purchases over the next three years, which the company has estimated will run to about $28.5 million. According to the loan’s terms, Amaero is required to complete a raise of capital prior to the first draw on the loan, expected to take place in Q4 ‘25.
Amaero specializes in producing metal powders used to produce parts for sectors including aerospace and space, and aims to be “the largest US domestic manufacturer” of C103 (Niobium), refractory and titanium alloys. The company has so far commissioned its first atomizer, with its second and third on order.
In a press release, chairman and CEO of Amaero Hank J. Holland said, “This is a very important milestone event for Amaero. Non-dilutive, US government-funded support is an important signal to the market that validates the alignment of Amaero’s strategy and capability with the United States’ priority policy initiatives. Amaero has intentionally pursued a corporate strategy that addresses critical gaps in US domestic manufacturing and supply chain capabilities. …The EXIM loan provides important enabling support to Amaero. The Company expects to invest approximately $50 million into capital equipment and facility improvements and to support an estimated 150 skilled, highly-paid US jobs.”
The EXIM president and board chair, Reta Jo Lewis, said, “With EXIM’s bipartisan Board of Director’s unanimous approval of the $23.5 million loan to Amaero…we are underscoring EXIM’s commitment to re-shoring and rebuilding more resilient and more scalable domestic manufacturing and supply chain capabilities. The loan is the 6th [MMIA] transaction and further highlights EXIM’s efforts to support the domestic manufacturing economy while creating skilled, highly-paid jobs in the US.”
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Amaero’s EXIM loan brings together a variety of different threads that represent likely overlaps between the Biden administration’s key policy priorities and those of the incoming Trump administration. The fight over critical minerals, a major geopolitical flashpoint driving retaliatory activity between the US and China under Biden, is already escalating prior to the official start to Trump’s second term in office.
As one of a growing number of companies with a dual presence in Australia and the US — a group that is benefitting from the Australia-UK-US (AUKUS) trilateral relationship — Amaero also has the geographic advantage that could make it indispensable to the West’s attempts to play catch-up to China’s dominance over global supply chains. In the summer of 2024, Amaero announced that HR McMaster, former national security advisor during President Trump’s first administration, had joined the company as a special advisor.
That makes Amaero one of a handful of AM companies with advisors from the highest ranks of US defense policymakers, another theme that could very well accelerate in the near future. As AM’s continued success in the US public sector presents the starkest contrast to its difficulties in equity markets, the next few years will largely be about determining which of those pictures conveys the truer narrative concerning AM’s overall development.
Images courtesy of Amaero International
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