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Lynas soars to rare heights

manda Lacaze’s appointment as managing director of Lynas Rare
A Earths Ltd in mid-2014 raised plenty of eyebrows. At the time, the
company had just joined the producer ranks– the first rare earths entity
outside China to achieve the feat – but many believed the business was
on shaky ground and the wrong person had been tasked with steadying
the ship.

hile her business nous was never table, including really understanding how shape it has ever been with the company
Wcalled into question, having previ- to run a business and how to get the best posting new records for sales revenue
ously held senior roles with Telstra and out of the people who were in the busi- ($327.2 million) and sales receipts ($262
a number of other major telecommuni- ness.” million) in the March quarter on the back of
cations groups, Lacaze’s perceived lack The way in which Lacaze brushed off record neodymium-praseodymium (NdPr)
of experience in the challenging and that initial criticism and took it in her stride and total rare earth oxides (TREO) pro-
opaque rare earths sector made her an epitomises how Lynas has navigated its duction.
easy target for the naysayers. own challenges over the past eight years. “We certainly have had many challeng-
“I remember someone wrote something Until recently, rare earths sat alongside es over the life of the company, particularly
at one stage which basically said, ‘what uranium as unloved investment proposi- in my tenure with the organisation, but I
would I know about rare earths?’,” Lacaze tions and the company seemed to only think for everybody in the company it’s a
recalled. attract negative headlines, including dis- matter of some pride that we’ve been able
“I remember saying at the time, ‘well, putes with government over waste man- to take those issues in our stride,” Lacaze
I didn’t think anyone was born knowing agement and finding itself the subject of told Paydirt.
about rare earths but I will learn’. And there an audacious takeover attempt. “Our biggest challenge now is just how
were plenty of other things I brought to the Today, Lynas is arguably in the best do we grow fast enough, instead of deal-

Page 24 JULY 2022 aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT