Donald Trump has won the US Presidential election, which is good news for defence-focused and US-based 3D printing specialists Amaero (ASX:3DA).
Not only is Trump bullish on defence spending and expanding America’s military presence abroad – but Amaero also employs Trump’s former national security advisor Lt. H.R. McMaster.
That alone should be enough to raise eyebrows in a good way.
But Amaero happens to find itself at the juncture of several initiatives in the US – a need to reshore and scale industrial base capabilities; a ramp-up in defence spending, and, a Trump staple: reshoring skilled, high paying manufacturing jobs back in the States.
So what do they do?
This is one of those companies that works in a fairly invisible space you never really think about, but which is absolutely fundamental to the modern world.
Newly located in Tennessee, part of America’s sprawling rust belt where many US manufacturing job reshoring initiatives are rolling out on the ground, after years of hard work, Amaero is now ready to commercialise and enter the market proper.
Who are Amaero?
The company, in a sentence, produces critical powders needed to make strategic 3D Printing – or additive manufacturing, if you will – possible.
The company sells premium specialty metal powders that are the essential feedstock for 3D printing complex and high-value parts for the defence, space and aerospace industries.
Put simply: if 3D Printing is a gold rush, Amaero is selling shovels.
If you aren’t a 3D Printing enthusiast, it might be easy to miss how embedded the relatively fresh technology has become in the modern world.
While there’s a lot of talk about AI being the biggest technological breakthrough of our time – really, we just somehow found a way to make search engines even less effective – it could be 3D Printing is the key driving force to advancing manufacturing and industrial production.
The number of 3D Printing companies in the US jumped over 10% YoY in 2023, and one source states that in 2021, just over two million 3D Printers broadly were shipped around the world. That same source estimates the value of the US industry at US$14B.
Niche and uncrowded space
According to Amaero CEO Hank Holland, his company is the largest capacity producer of those critical powders in the US.
Amaero only has one other competitor, as far as its assessment of the landscape informs. It’s an US$8B market cap company, but, the important consideration is that additive manufacturing material supply isn’t their core business.
Amaero, on the other hand, is a pureplay additive manufacturing feedstock supplier. And with McMaster on its Board, the company anticipates being able to make the right moves in Washington.
A mix of acumen and macro
The nature of America’s modern military industrial complex is a large part of this story – so too is the evolution of rocket engineering.
As technology for rockets gets ever more complex (Amaero also caters to the maritime, space and aerospace industries) in an arms race that never truly ended, you need more and more complex machines to make ever more complicated parts.
In fact, modern defence technology broadly has come to such a point that many of the parts and components needed for critical infrastructure from missiles to submarines can no longer be produced using legacy manufacturing equipment, as Amaero CEO Hank Holland told HotCopper.
“If you look at the tipping point of where we are for an adoption of additive manufacturing, a lot of these applications, the only way to make these parts is 3D printing,” Holland said.
“They’ve got internal cooling chambers and other geometries that it’s not possible to forge or cast these.”
Think hypersonic missiles, satellites, and submarine parts exposed to saltwater and pressure for months at a time.
Enter additive manufacturing – or, to use pub language, 3D Printing with metal.
So what does Amaero sell?
Amaero’s flagship product is C103 Niobium powder. The Niobium alloy was first used in the Apollo lunar landing vehicle in 1969.
For the US military to 3D Print components for hypersonic weapons or for missile defense systems; or for space primes to print rocket nozzles or thrusters, both parties require niobium alloys. This is due to its high-performance, heat-resistant properties.
And to make alloys, one needs C103 Niobium powder.
“These are powders that are the input for additive manufacturing, or 3D printing, and they’re very important in high temperature applications, so think thermal protection or propulsion systems for hypersonic strategic missiles, but also space launch and satellites,” Holland explained.
And as defence spending and manufacturing under Trump is set to expand, his Administration will be looking for domestic factories to make those assets using domestic labour. Print, baby, print.
“Under the Trump administration there will be a very clear emphasis on strengthening the manufacturing base of this country, our manufacturing capabilities and a focus on bringing skilled, high paying jobs back to the US,” Holland said.
The CEO also sees 2025 as being the year where Amaero’s vision really starts to come together.
A busy year ahead
“I think it’s a turning point in the US.
“With the adoption of 3D printing but also the generational investment in these programs [for] weapons platforms such as hypersonics and strategic missiles,” demand is likely to be reliable.
Holland sees a fortuitous calendar year just around the corner.
With its Niobium C103 powder qualified by a leading Tier 1 additive manufacturer, with offtake and preferred supplier contract executed and more in the works, and with a high-ranking former Trump executive on its team ahead of the Trump Administration’s January ascension, the company expects both commercial revenues, and, possible US Government funding.
Maybe the shovel-gold-rush analogy is tired. You could say that in an arms race, Amaero is selling sneakers.
Disclaimer: The Market Online had a commercial relationship with Amaero at the time this article was created.
