Almonty Draws Institutional Attention as $300 Million Buyback Collides With a 96% Rally

Almonty attracts institutional investors amid 63% monthly rally, $300M buyback, and Sangdong production ramp; valuation concerns persist.

The tungsten producer Almonty Industries is suddenly attracting a broader constituency. Within the past week, Copenhagen-based Nykredit A/S disclosed a fresh position of 3,500 shares, while the Public Employees Retirement System of Ohio revealed a holding of 109,121 shares valued at roughly $1.81 million. The filings signal that the Toronto-listed miner is moving beyond the orbit of retail traders and specialty resources funds into the portfolios of mainstream institutional capital.

The timing is no accident. Almonty's stock has been on a tear that has made it one of the more conspicuous movers in the critical minerals space this year, and the company is now deploying a substantial buyback into that momentum.

A Buyback Timed to a Heated Tape

The share repurchase program, authorized by the board last month, permits the acquisition of up to 14.4 million common shares — approximately 5 percent of outstanding stock — for as much as $300 million. The program went live on August 24 and runs through August 24, 2029.

Management's decision to buy back stock at current levels is a notable vote of confidence. The shares have climbed 63 percent over the past 30 days and sit 96 percent higher year-to-date. That rally has been fueled in part by the company's quarterly results, released roughly three weeks ago, which have since added 34.6 percent to the share price.

Yet the stock is not without its wobbles. At Friday's close, Almonty traded at €15.57, down 3.9 percent on the day, leaving it roughly a quarter below its 52-week high of $20.61. It remains comfortably above its 200-day moving average of $12.68, and a long way from the 52-week low of $3.42.

The recent pullback has a specific catalyst: Chinese prices for ammonium paratungstate (APT), a key tungsten intermediate, slipped nearly 2 percent in August to 598,000 yuan per tonne, pressured by elevated inventories and soft downstream demand. That monthly decline has injected a note of caution into a market that had been pricing in relentless tightness.

Washington Adds a Supply-Side Twist

The broader tungsten complex is also absorbing a fresh policy shock. On Thursday, a one-year U.S. export restriction on tungsten scrap and "black mass" from lithium-ion batteries took effect, a move by the Commerce Department designed to keep strategic materials inside American borders for defense and industrial use.

The measure is expected to meaningfully tighten the global supply of recycled tungsten, potentially offsetting some of the downward pressure emanating from China. It is the latest in a series of supply-side interventions: earlier Chinese export controls had already driven Rotterdam tungsten prices up by roughly 800 percent, and media reports credit that surge with Almonty's 70 percent jump in August.

Sangdong Ramps as Offtake Deals Deepen

Operationally, the company is navigating a transition at its flagship Sangdong mine in South Korea, which shifted from construction to active processing over the summer and is now working through stockpiled ore. Full commercial production with a meaningful revenue contribution is targeted for the fourth quarter of 2026.

The mine's strategic importance has been underscored by offtake arrangements. The Plansee Group, Almonty's largest shareholder, confirmed in July that it had secured the majority of Sangdong's tungsten concentrate output through long-term agreements. Separately, mid-July saw the renegotiation of a long-standing supply deal with Global Tungsten & Powders (GTP): the contract term was extended from 15 to 21 years, with contracted volumes rising 40 percent to 4.41 million metric ton units.

A Slimmer Listing Structure

The company is also consolidating its share trading. The board decided in mid-August to pursue a voluntary delisting from both the Australian Securities Exchange and the Toronto Stock Exchange, concentrating liquidity on the Nasdaq. Australian CDI securities were suspended from trading yesterday, with the delisting taking effect September 1.

Valuation Debate Sharpens

Not everyone is convinced the rally is justified. An automated valuation model flagged the stock as "clearly overvalued" on Saturday, citing a calculated fair value of $3.93 against a market price of $18.05. The model also noted an absence of insider transactions over the past twelve months, though mandatory filings tell a more nuanced story: while some insiders have sold, one director has added to a position.

The valuation concern is amplified by the earnings multiple. Media reports point to a price-to-earnings ratio of roughly 104, a demanding level for a company still scaling production. Diamond Equity added to the skepticism on August 19, cutting its fiscal 2026 earnings estimate from $0.55 to $0.39 per share, citing the pace of the Sangdong transition.

The picture that emerges is of a company executing on multiple fronts simultaneously — a buyback, a production ramp, a listing consolidation, and deepening offtake relationships — while the market debates whether the operational story can catch up to a share price that has run far ahead of current fundamentals. For now, the institutional filings suggest a growing camp believes it can.