ASP Isotopes bets big on SA as critical minerals and nuclear demand surge - CEO Paul Mann

ASP Isotopes CEO Paul Mann explains why the group is doubling down on South Africa - from turning around the Renergen gas asset to building a global isotope business spanning nuclear medicine, semiconductors and clean energy, backed by a strong balance sheet and US government support.

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When Paul Mann speaks about ASP Isotopes, it is not with the tone of a distant executive dialling in from New York or London. He is on the ground, in South Africa, walking plants, talking to engineers and overseeing what he believes is one of the most important industrial stories unfolding quietly in the country.

Mann is both executive chair and chief executive of ASP Isotopes, a Nasdaq-listed company that has built a growing footprint in South Africa around isotope enrichment, nuclear medicine, advanced materials and now natural gas. For a brief period last year, he stepped back from the CEO role after undergoing ankle surgery that left him unable to travel. That absence is now over.

“I have broken my ankle twice in two years,” he explained to BizNews founder Alec Hogg. “I could not really walk for a while. But I am fine now. I am travelling again and I am back in South Africa. The future is looking bright.”

Much of that optimism is tied to ASP Isotopes’ acquisition of Renegen, the Virginia gas and helium project in the Free State. The transaction closed in early January, following ASP’s secondary listing on the JSE last August. Renegen shareholders are now part of ASP Isotopes, and the integration is already showing results.

According to Mann, the change has been less about discovering new geology and more about applying scale, expertise and execution discipline.

“Renegen had three engineers,” he said. “We have more than 40 engineers. About 20 percent of them have PhDs. You add manpower, you add different skills, and performance improves.”

ASP has also brought in Kennedy Exploration, a specialist drilling firm, to overhaul drilling strategy and apply new seismic data. The result has been higher gas flow per well, fewer wells required, and better returns on capital.

“This is an incredible resource,” Mann said. “One of a kind in the world. We are going to turn it into a world class LNG and helium facility.”

The Renegen deal is only one piece of a broader puzzle. ASP Isotopes now operates across four verticals. Nuclear energy sits within Quantum Leap Energy, which Mann expects to spin out later this year. Nuclear medicine is already producing revenue, supplying close to 100 percent of South Africa’s PET imaging isotopes. Electronics and rocketry is a newer growth area focused on advanced materials for semiconductors. Natural gas, including Renegen, is seen as non core but strategically valuable.

This structure explains ASP’s recent R10 million investment into a biotech company called Opiango, which raised eyebrows due to Mann and fellow director Todd Wider holding personal interests in the firm. Mann says governance was handled properly, with both directors recusing themselves from the board decision.

The logic of the investment is vertical integration. Opiango works on protein engineering and drug delivery. ASP produces the radioisotopes that can be attached to those drugs.

“If you attach an isotope to a protein, you can create better drugs,” Mann said. “There are huge synergies.”

The company is still early in its revenue journey. Nuclear medicine revenues are measured in single digit millions of dollars annually. But the growth ambition is steep. ASP has guided to a long term target of $300 million in EBITDA by 2030.

Crucially, Mann says the balance sheet is not under strain. ASP raised roughly $310 million last year at the group level, followed by $70 million into Quantum Leap Energy. That capital allows ASP to invest heavily without returning to equity markets in the near term.

“We have never had a stronger balance sheet,” he said. “We are going to deploy that capital into high return projects.”

At Renegen alone, ASP plans to invest about $170 million, unlocking more than $3 billion in debt funding, much of it backed by US government agencies. The strategy relies on using other people’s capital to scale assets that ASP believes were previously undervalued and under resourced.

Beyond gas and isotopes, Mann sees the company positioned at the fault lines of global supply chains. His background as a hedge fund manager left him acutely aware of how fragile access to critical materials can be.

“Some of my best short positions were companies that needed isotopes and could not get them,” he said. “They missed earnings again and again because the supply chain was broken.”

Those cracks have widened since 2018, accelerated by Covid, and are now seen as national security issues in the US and Europe. Semiconductors are a prime example. Moore’s Law, the long standing principle that chips double in speed every 18 months, is believed to have effectively stalled.

“To go faster, you need new materials,” Mann explained. “Silicon 28, germanium 70, carbon 12. The world will need these isotopes. There are not many suppliers. Our goal is to be one of them.”

That ambition explains why ASP employs nearly 300 people, most of them in South Africa.

“We hired some of the smartest nuclear engineers and physicists in the world here,” Mann said. “Those skills are rare. You do not find them easily in the US or the UK.”

Global investors are starting to notice. Mann says he speaks to five to ten US investors a week. Several have visited ASP’s South African facilities firsthand.

“They want to see it,” he said. “They want to understand how critical material supply chains are being rebuilt.”

For South African investors wary of Renegen’s past, Mann’s message is simple.

“Come and visit,” he said. “See the plants. Speak to the engineers. We have a track record of buying distressed assets and fixing them. The turnaround is already happening.”

Financial evidence, he says, should begin showing by mid year, with larger gains unfolding over the next four years.

For a company operating at the intersection of energy, medicine and geopolitics, ASP Isotopes remains under the radar. But Mann is clear about the mission.

“Our goal is to make isotopes for the world,” he said. “To power industries, to treat diseases, and to make supply chains more resilient. If we do that, we change lives for the better.”