‘I’ve loved every day’: Amanda Lacaze to step down as Lynas Rare Earths chief after 12 years

Amanda Lacaze will step down as chief executive of Lynas Rare Earths after leading the “double-century” turnaround of a once-cash strapped startup into the commodity’s biggest producer outside of China.

The Gina Rinehart-backed company announced Ms Lacaze’s retirement to the Australian Securities Exchange on Tuesday, with the CEO to stay with the business until the end of June while the board finds her replacement.

The exiting boss said it was “the right time to make this transition” after the business closed the book on a hefty $750m capital raising at the end of last year.

“I’ve loved every day of my 12 years at Lynas,” Ms Lacaze said in a statement. “It has been a great privilege to lead the company from a troubled startup to an ASX50 company.”

Ms Lacaze told The West Australian planning Lynas’ 2030 strategy last year had prompted her to question whether she would be with the company by the end of the decade.

“I knew that at some stage this had to happen. One puts these things in the back of one’s mind and thinks ‘if you don’t think about it, it will never happen’. But at some stage it needed to,” she said.

“Am I seeing myself still running Lynas in 2030? And I’ve reached the conclusion probably not.

“And frankly, June sees me reach my 12-year anniversary. If I was a test batsman, that’s probably a double century.”

Lynas and its rare earths mining and refining operations in Kalgoorlie and Malaysia have become of increased focus since the US cranked up its efforts to hoard more of the globally sought-after commodity in recent years.

In Australia the Federal Government has tried to cultivate the industry by providing substantial loans to aspiring producers but more recently plotted out a $1.2 billion stockpile plan and signed a $US3b ($4.4b) financing partnership with the US.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers is in Washington met with finance ministers of G7 countries as well as representatives of the European Union, South Korea, India and Mexico on Monday, according to Bloomberg, in a move that could potentially shore up new rare earths supply deals for Australia.

Commenting on the Government’s efforts she said Australia “could legitimately aspire to be the leading supplier of feedstock into the rare earths industry” but reaffirmed her belief that Lynas success had come down to its willingness to let other countries handle intensive processing.

“Lynas is a perfect case study of we don’t have to do it all ourselves.

“When we bring our strengths to the table, which is resource, geology… alongside the strength our Malaysian colleagues have with respect to manufacturing running, big chemical plants in particular…that is why Lynas has been so successful.

“If we tried to do one without the other, I doubt we could have been as successful as we have been.”

Shares in Lynas have risen nearly 18 per cent over the past month after China — the world’s dominant supplier — tightened its rare earths exports.

The stock fell 3 per cent lower in early trade but was up over 1 per cent to $14.93 at 9:47 AWST.

Ms Lacaze has for many years carried the mantle as one of the few women leading a listed mining company. The Queenslander joined the board of Lynas in 2014 as a director and was made CEO about six months later.

“I am reminded of the one of the articles when I was appointed, where the journalist said ‘Well, what would she know about rare earths?’ And I remember saying at the time ‘well, no one was born knowing about rare earths so I guess I’ll learn just like everybody else.”

And while there has been increased competition over the past 18 months, Lynas remains the largest non-China based rare earths producer globally, sourcing ore for its refining operations from the Mt Weld mine in the northern Goldfields.

Board chair John Humphrey said Ms Lacaze had made an outstanding contribution to the rare earths industry and that she had joined when Lynas was “in a very difficult position”.

“Under Amanda’s leadership, the company’s production and operating footprint has grown and our market value has increased from around $400 million in 2014 to close to $15 billion.”

As for her chosen replacement, they’ll need to have a deft hand in dealing with the heightened political attention surrounding rare earths.

Ms Lacaze shared that running Lynas warranted “an entrepreneurial approach”.

“It’s no good approaching this in the same in the same way that you might some others of large Australian companies, mining or otherwise. But I’m pretty confident that there will be a lot of excellent candidates.”

The miner had ambitions of building a new plant in Texas under project Seadrift, but has been effectively forced to drop those plans due after struggling to secure extra funding from a Trump administration seemingly focused on homegrown companies.

Plans for global expansion came following a strong three months for the miner, with quarterly production of neodymium and praseodymium getting above 2000t for the first time in November.