 Today I have the pleasure speaking with Konstantin Karinopoulos. He's the CEO for Neoproformance Materials. How are you today? Great Tracy. Thank you. And I understand that we're speaking to you in from Estonia. Is that correct? Indeed. That's the old town in Tallinn behind me. I'm in my hotel room, and I'm here to visit our plant and participate in one of our business unit meetings as well as talk to the various government folks in Estonia. And of course, Neoproformance Materials is an international company. You have positions in 10 countries. Is that correct? That's correct. Now you just announced, I thought this was an interesting news release, that you join the UN Global Compact and you're committing to implementing its 10 principles to promote sustainability. I just love this news release. Can you talk to the highlights of this please? Sure. ESG is an environmental, social and governance practices are becoming much more important in our industry, both from a customer point of view who all expect us to live by ESG principles, but also in the public markets investors expect the companies they invest in to uphold the ESG principles in a sustainable way. And this was the first step in a long process. So whatever we were doing along health and safety and environmental and sustainability now becomes much more codified. And there is a set of principles articulated by the United Nations and we committed to living by those principles. I think that's sort of a minimum, almost, and that needs to continue to be translated into actual practices in the way that we do everything we do in all of our plans, in all of our offices, in addition to all the sustainability benefits that our products make possible. So all in all, I think it's the right thing to do. It's the right thing to do for all the stakeholders for the company and it will become a much bigger thing for the entire industry. So the sooner folks in the industry adopt these principles and start working and implementing them and then reporting on them, the better it will be for everybody. So I would think ESG funds and this of course is an exploding sector in the financial market would be knocking your door down. Can you comment on this? Well, this past week after I spoke at a conference in London, the annual rarest conference on Monday and I attended Tuesday. But Tuesday onwards, I was in London and had a number of meetings with institutional investors in London and in the rest of Europe physically and virtually. And yeah, clearly ESG is top of mind for pretty well all the institutions that I had conversations with this past week. So of course, Sino Performance is the only company in the world that operates dual supply chains inside and outside of China for rare earths, rare earth separation and the commercial production of rare earths advanced material. You own and operate the only operating commercial rare earth separation facility in Europe. I want to hit you with the question that I think, can you comment on your valuation? Many of us still deem your valuation not to be where it should be. Clearly, we would like to get the value of the company higher but at the same time without inviting hubris, of course, because don't forget that a year ago we're trading at $8 and change. Of course, on the back of the worst quarter in our recent history because of COVID and a quarter, mind you, that we were still cash positive and profitable, which really speaks to the resiliency and the robustness of our business model. So right now, we feel better about the valuation compared to a year ago, but clearly we feel that the real value in the company should be much higher because our current multiple reflect sort of resource type companies as opposed to advanced material specialty producers like us, especially companies with a significant footprint in Europe and very well positioned to capture growth on the back of what is happening in the EV supply chains in Europe and eventually North America. Well, according to our coverage of your Q2 results, we thought they were extraordinarily strong, Constantine. So on that note and based on the rise in your stock price in the last year, is it too late for an investor to get in? Well, I'm not selling any of my stock. Given the fundamental underlying demand growth in our space, I think it's never too late. I'm very bullish on the industry. I'm very bullish on our company, in particular because of our unique skills and our unique manufacturing footprint. So no, as I said, I would like to see the valuation of the company much higher than it is today. And we're working on that on a strategy hopefully to get us there. So yeah, I have a lot of confidence in my team. And I'm trying to be very responsive to what our customers are telling us that they would like us to do and we're doing all those things. So if we execute on what we're trying to do, we don't need a lot of luck to successfully execute our European and North American strategy. But if we do, then I think we should be able to achieve much higher levels of valuation for the company. And of course, Constantine, it's such a pleasure to receive an update from you. You're certainly a leader in this sector, if not the leader in this sector. So many of us follow you just because we're interested, of course, in where you think our sector is going. Can you comment in general about the rare earth demand right now with there's a lot of conflicting media, we don't have enough rare earths, you know, would you like to use this as a platform on what you think is happening presently in the rare earth market? Because, you know, it's our conclusion that we don't have enough rare earths, okay, here at investor intel, to handle the EV rising EV demand. Can you comment on this? Yeah, as I said, as I mentioned, I spoke at the annual rare earth conference. And one of the things that I said is that there isn't enough rare earths, there isn't enough lithium, cobalt, any of the critical materials associated with the energy transition and the EV, in the transition of the automotive industry to EVs, we don't have enough out. So clearly, there needs to be more production throughout the supply chain. And to paraphrase the sheriff and Jaws, we need a bigger boat, simple as that. By the way, that wasn't an other than original comment. I'm plagiarizing a friend who spoke at a conference and said, we need a bigger boat. So we need a bigger boat, the industry needs to to mine more rare earths, we need to refine more rare earths, we need to produce more magnets, end of story. So we all have our part to do. And we hope that at Neomaterials, we will be able to capitalize on these massive growth opportunities, not only in Asia, but also in Europe especially, where demand seems to be growing faster than anywhere else, with the exception of China, and eventually North America. So let me ask you one final question, please. What should we as shareholders be anticipating in this next quarter with the some relief from COVID-19's impact on our market? And can you also add a line or two on whether or not Neopreformance Materials is looking for acquisition opportunities? Well, we have been looking, the ladder is a lot easier. We've had a full radar screen. For a while now, with things that we're looking at, the challenge for us is it's very, we need to maintain discipline, because you can easily fall in love with an acquisition and and pay, you know, crazy valuations for it. But, you know, if we're trading at a certain multiple, then it's very difficult to pay a significant premium for anything that we like, because, you know, in order to make it a creative, you cannot overpay. And, you know, in our case, we passed on a couple of opportunities, we continue to look at others, but we're patient and we're disciplined. And we need to find something that fits and something that's a creative and something that has enough synergies in the best sense of the world, synergies, meaning we can take advantage of the combination to do, to accelerate growth for both Neil and whoever we end up buying. So in that sense, yeah, we continue to look, but we also continue to stay disciplined, as I said. Your first question about the third quarter, you know, we're so close to releasing, I'd rather not say anything that could possibly get me in trouble. But on the strategic front, over the next little while, I would be looking for indications of how our European strategies coming along. Because as you pointed out, we are the only company with a commercially operating rare earth production plant in Europe. And we are the only company that operates parallel supply chains inside and outside of China for magnetic materials and rare earth based magnetic materials and advanced catalytic rare earth materials. So we need to continue to capitalize on that position and execute on a strategy that allows us to do that. So I'll be looking again, I'm not suggesting that anything is imminent, but over the next few quarters, I would be looking for indications or manifestations of that strategy being implemented in a way that makes sense. Well, you've heard it here at Investor Intel with Constantine Carinopoulos from Neopreformance Materials. Thank you so much. Thank you, Tracy, as always. Take care.