RecycLiCo Battery Materials Inc. (AMY.V) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

I'm Jim Goddard. My guest is Zarko Meseldzija, Chief Executive Officer of RecycLiCo. Welcome back to Company Showcase.

Thanks for having me, Joe.

What's the latest at RecycLiCo?

Well, it's been a busy week, but I did want to take a few minutes of your time today to address a few key developments and questions from a number of listeners. Last week, I did attend the Benchmark Week in Los Angeles. This event, as many of you know, is a cornerstone in our industry, bringing together leading companies and thinkers in the battery industry, and we had the privilege of hearing from the likes of Stanley Whittingham, who is a Nobel Laureate for the invention of lithium-ion battery -- he shared a presentation as well as we heard from Arnold Schwarzenegger, who I'm sure we all know as well, and he shared his thoughts on how we should terminate pollution and say hasta la vista to greenhouse gases. So I think the energy in the room was great and just a lot of great conversations. But I think it was also encouraging to connect with those different leaders and companies who have valued our strategic approach to battery recycling, and who have been following us and working with us for a number of years. Their appreciation really underscores the important sustaining agile in our business strategies, especially in a dynamic market, which we've experienced year in and year out going to these events and seeing how things change. But 1 key takeaway from the conversations I've had and they resonate deeply with our mission is the importance of staying agile in our business strategies. The market conditions are always evolving, such as commodity prices and new battery technologies, and it's crucial that we adapt and evolve with them while maintaining our core values and objectives. Now this agility is going to be key to success, especially in the new industry and RecycLiCo is going to continue navigating these opportunities that we see year in and year out at these industry events. And we have the foresight of kind of what's coming next and what we should be expecting next. But with that, I'd like to also quickly -- given I've talked about this a little bit and I talked about maybe a few times in the podcast as well, but I want to quickly address our business model and the long-term outlook, which we shared in our recent CEO letter this week. And I think everybody should -- listening should find that letter and use that as a reference of our company's plan going forward as -- what is our mission and which -- where we are we going, right? If you're -- things aren't -- don't seem right, read that letter for reference and then say this is the direction we're going. And with time, things will get there. Because I think in a dynamic market, it's natural to see new technologies. And -- and we get questions all the time about how they compare to ours. But it's important to always understand the fundamentals and then no technology or partnership happens overnight. So take, for instance, our press release this week where lithium carbonate from recycled battery waste was successfully qualified through battery cell testing by C4V. This follows last year's success with our precursor cathode-active material, both crucial products of our RecycLiCo process. And these achievements are going to be key to demonstrating our circular economy for lithium-ion batteries. And I think that's one of the fundamental truth is there's no shortcut in making a lithium-ion battery work. There's specs and if you have to achieve those. And what we're showing is our material is to that quality that the industry wants. We've also sent our products to a number of other companies, as we've announced before and shared some of those qualification results, although many of those names are undisclosed. But keep in mind, this phase might seem slow, but it also allows us to be agile and to demonstrate our technology to create samples more cost effectively. And this is crucial for building confidence in our technology and forming joint ventures and building commercial plants in partnership. Because remember, the qualification process takes time regardless. And sometimes it's beyond our control. But this is a necessary step in building these relationships with companies. And whether at our current scale or on a larger plant, we would still be going through these qualification processes. But on a larger plant, we would be investing more during this multiyear process. And this year, I mean, we've seen these strategies -- and it's -- we've seen some strategies play out. And I think this year, especially, we've witnessed some significant shifts in the recycling industry, especially with large-scale strategies that really got out right away in building plants and trying to process materials because now we're seeing many companies are facing kind of project cost overruns and increased debt, particularly in a climate where capital isn't cheap, it's going to provide some challenges. And these challenges really highlight a crucial point, the fundamentals of their technology and the importance of proper scaling and going the methodical approach, right? So there's really no shortcut in this field. And through planning and patient, those will be key attributes, as rushing can just only lead to bigger problems down the line. And I do encourage, if you haven't already listened to my last podcast, where I discussed those steps, those really critical steps in planning and design that we're taking for our joint venture with Zenith. I've received questions about the -- after that podcast, I have received questions about the project time line. And while I prioritize doing it right over speed, where things stand right now, our target is 2025. And of course, that's subject to change, but this is what we're targeting. We're also, at the same time, also actively pursuing other joint venture prospects where we're engaged in a process that includes that technology review, demonstration of our technology, material validation and eventually the negotiations and commercial planning. So as we've announced a number of these different stages and some of these we're working on with companies. But this is kind of the general progression of building that confidence in technology and scaling it. It is kind of that pipeline of work is a meticulous process working with collaborators, right? And -- but it is essentially, like I said, for long-term success. So again, if there are any more questions that come up, please don't hesitate to contact us at our office. I'd be happy to answer any questions as we continue doing podcasts.

Zarko, where are you traded and how can people get more information?

We're traded on the TSXV under the ticker symbol AMY, and the OTCQB under the ticker symbol AMYZF, and the Frankfurt Stock Exchange under ID4, and you can get more information on our website, www.recyclico.com.

Zarko, thank you so much for the update.

Thank you, Jim.

My guest has been Zarko Meseldzija, CEO of RecycLiCo. I'm Jim Goddard. Our conversation took place on November 17.