Elemental Holding completes $290M equity investment

Elemental Holding SA, a global urban mining and recycling company that originated in Poland and now has headquarters in Luxemburg, says it has completed a $290 million equity private placement from a group of international financial institutions led by the International Finance Corp. (IFC), the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the Polish Development Fund S.A. (PFR).

Established in 2010, Elemental is a global recycler that is focused on extracting platinum group metals (PGMs), such as palladium, platinum and rhodium, from spent automotive catalysts (SACs) and gold, silver and copper concentrate from end-of-life electronics and printed circuit boards. Elemental has 55 subsidiaries in 35 countries that own more than 50 collection and processing facilities. It has 30 sites across Europe and the rest in the United States, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Malaysia). Elemental employs more than 1,100 people worldwide.

In late 2019, Elemental Holding acquired a controlling stake in PGM of Texas. In 2021, the company acquired U.S.-based catalytic converter processors Maryland Core Inc. of Baltimore and Legend Smelting and Recycling (LSR), Hebron, Ohio.

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Elemental says the equity private placement is an important step toward securing more than $500 million in growth capital, including project finance debt and grants from the European Union. This capital will help fund its growth projects, accelerate its global acquisition strategy and secure funding for general corporate purposes.

“With our large existing metals recycling footprint and attractive growth pipeline, Elemental is uniquely positioned to benefit from global decarbonization megatrends such as the increased focus on circular economy and recycling, the shift to electric vehicles and the need to build local supply chains of critical minerals,” Pawel Jarski, CEO and founder of Elemental, says. “We are excited to partner with leading global financial institutions such as the IFC, EBRD and PFR who will play a critical role in enabling the company’s global growth strategy.

“I would also like to thank a former shareholder of Elemental, Przemek Krych of Cornerstone Investment Management, for his support as [an] investor and the potential he saw in the group.”

Elemental’s growth projects include constructing a production facility in southern Poland that will recycle lithium-ion batteries and recover PGMs from SACs. The facility will include a PGM refinery and a lithium, cobalt and nickel recovery facility.

The company says the plant will be in a special economic zone in Katowice, Poland’s main industrial area, and will produce secondary metals and other materials that can be reused as raw materials for manufacturing new batteries or in other applications.

Solar photovoltaic (PV) panels and electricity storage will be installed at the facility, providing around 40 percent of its electricity needs.

Elemental says it also is developing a co-located recycling and refining facility for processing e-scrap concentrate designed to enable low-emission production of secondary copper, aluminum, iron, tin, gold, silver and palladium.

“Enabling emerging markets to tackle growing waste management concerns and laying the groundwork for a circular economy is a priority for IFC," says Ary Naïm, IFC regional manager for Central and southeast Europe. "Through this investment, we are supporting a leading global company in reducing the amount of waste being landfilled and contributing to greater sustainability by demonstrating the potential of a circular economy business model.”

Frederic Lucenet, director of EBRD’s Manufacturing and Services team, says, “The project demonstrates the EBRD’s commitment to green economy in industry. In Poland, 80 percent of our investment last year supported low-carbon transition. Our equity investment in Elemental will allow the new facility to introduce solar PV into a traditionally carbon-intensive manufacturing sector and will support e-waste recycling, which is a further step towards sustainability of resources.”

“Participation in Elemental’s private placement lies at the very core of PFR’s investment strategy given the company’s Polish footprint and the fact that, through its operations, Elemental provides supply of metals that are crucial for future growth of the Polish economy,” says PFR CEO Paweł Borys. “For our fund, it is a continuation of the long-term involvement in the company, and we are thrilled to see the growth plans materializing and new investors coming aboard. Furthermore, this transaction supports our increasing involvement in green investments, which involve[s] supporting areas such as renewable energy, energy efficiency and overall transition of businesses into more environmentally friendly models.”