Evion Group (ASX:EVG) clocks US$530k EBITDA at a quarter of capacity

The 54.5% gross margin reshapes how Evion’s processing arm should be valued against the exploration story

Evion Group (ASX:EVG) has delivered its first full year of audited numbers from the Panthera Graphite Technologies joint venture, and the result is more interesting than the headline figure suggests. The expandable graphite operation outside Pune produced US$530,000 of EBITDA in the year to 31 March 2026, at only 20 to 25% of nameplate capacity.

The key point is not the absolute number. It is the margin. PGT booked a 54.5% gross profit margin on US$1.72 million of revenue, up from 30.7% the year before, and reduced its on-site debt facility from operating cash flow while doing it.

For an Evion shareholder, that changes the framing. The story so far has been about exploration assets in Madagascar and a recently optioned fluorspar project in Nevada. Now there is a small but real processing business inside the group that is actually earning money rather than burning it.

The margin print is the signal, not the EBITDA dollars

US$530,000 of EBITDA is not, on its own, a number that moves a small-cap thesis. The reason it matters is what it implies about the unit economics at capacity. Expandable graphite realised US$3,100 to US$3,400 per tonne, a premium to commodity-grade product that reflects sales into US and European industrial customers.

Management’s Stage 1 model points to US$3.4 million EBITDA at 2,500 tonnes per year, rising to US$5.8 million at 4,000 tonnes. Those numbers assume the 63.7% gross margin holds as volume scales. The FY26 print of 54.5% at quarter-capacity is consistent with that trajectory.

We think the empirical validation of operating leverage is the genuine takeaway. A modelled margin is a slide. An audited margin moving from 30.7% to 54.5% in twelve months is evidence.

Why this changes the shape of the broader Evion story

Until now, Evion has been a pre-revenue critical minerals developer asking shareholders to fund optionality. The Maniry graphite project in Madagascar is approaching a Final Investment Decision, and the Carp fluorspar option in Nevada, secured via the A$6.6 million raise we covered earlier this year, is still in early verification work.

PGT is the only piece of the portfolio currently generating cash. That gives the rest of the group an internal earnings line that grows independently of how quickly the development assets advance. It does not eliminate dilution risk attached to funding Carp and Maniry, but it changes the relative weighting of the equity story.

The skeptical read is that PGT is a joint venture with Metachem, so Evion only sees half of the headline EBITDA at the group level. US$265,000 of attributable EBITDA in FY26 is real but small.

What still has to go right for the model to land

The ramp from 720 tonnes sold in FY26 to 2,500 tonnes at Stage 1 capacity requires both customer demand and operational execution. Premium pricing has to hold as volume expands, which is not guaranteed in a market where Chinese supply remains the price-setter for most graphite grades.

Finance costs of US$372,000 and depreciation of US$157,000 took net profit before tax down to just US$1,000 for the year. That is the reminder that the business is not yet at the scale where it generates meaningful free cash flow for the parent.

Our concern is that Evion is now running three workstreams in parallel, scaling PGT, verifying Carp in Nevada, and pushing Maniry toward FID. Each of those needs management attention and, at some point, capital.

The Investors Takeaway for Evion Group

The PGT result gives Evion something tangible to point at while it works the longer-dated development assets. The margin structure is now empirically supported, and the path to US$3.4 million of joint venture EBITDA at Stage 1 is mechanical rather than speculative if volume scales as planned.

We will be watching the cadence of volume growth into FY27 quarterlies, because that is what tells us whether the ramp is on management’s implied timeline. Readers can find our prior coverage of Evion’s fluorspar pivot at stocksdownunder. If the FY27 print shows volume tracking toward 2,500 tonnes with the margin intact, the equity story stops being about optionality and starts being about earnings.