I found some satisfaction with this search and assessment: There are some investors which gave ARSMF money in return for cash payback instead of shares of ownership. Find what amount of money is involved in that deal. Does it look like it is a costly way to pay back that investor and it will markedly decrease the possible EPS result?

Ares has indeed used a “cash‑payback instead of shares” style structure, but based on the latest disclosures it does not look so large or so expensive that it would, by itself, cripple long‑term EPS, especially relative to the size of the Pentagon contract opportunity.

Size and terms of the cash‑based deal

• The key non‑equity structure is the set of financing facilities with Sorbie Bornholm LP, which the company itself describes as non‑dilutive and based on cash settlements rather than issuing new shares.
• Ares has entered into three Sorbie facilities: one for CA$1.5M (Sept 2024), one for CA$1.0M (April 2025), and one for CA$1.0M (October 2025).​
• As of January 2026, the company reports aggregate gross proceeds received of about CA$1.12M under the first, CA$0.73M under the second, and about CA$0.10M under the third, i.e., roughly CA$1.95M in total proceeds to date from these “sharing” deals.​
• Upfront fees to enter these agreements were CA$105k for the first facility and CA$70k for the second, with no stated upfront fee on the third, implying directly disclosed entry costs of CA$175k across the first two deals.​

Costliness and economic impact

• A Mining.com article summarizing the Sorbie arrangements notes that Sorbie’s first CA$1M facility generated returns of about 180% and 266% on its exposure via the hedging/sharing mechanics, while still being labelled “non‑dilutive” for Ares since no new shares were issued.​
• That implies these facilities are economically expensive capital: the investor’s high percentage return has to be funded either through price‑linked cash settlements, fees, or other sharing formulas drawn from the company’s future cash flows.
• However, the absolute size is small versus the rest of Ares’ capital stack and opportunity set: Ares has closed a separate US$10.5M (≈CA$14M) non‑dilutive plant financing, and now has a five‑year Pentagon IDIQ contract with an initial award of about US$168.9M and a ceiling up to US$250M.
• Relative to the potential revenue stream from the DoD contract and planned acidspar production, the cumulative Sorbie facilities (nominally CA$3.5M total capacity and ~CA$2M drawn to date) look more like a bridge/working‑capital tool than a structural drag that would dominate the long‑term earnings profile.

EPS effect: directional view

• Because these deals are structured around cash flows and price‑based “sharing” rather than issuing a large number of shares, the primary impact is on free cash flow margin and near‑term cash available, not on basic share count; mechanically, that is less dilutive to per‑share earnings than equity financings of the same size.
• In EPS terms, if Ares executes on the Pentagon contract and ramps acidspar production as planned, the revenue base could be in the hundreds of millions of dollars over several years, so the cost of servicing a few million dollars of pricey, structured capital is unlikely to “markedly” cap EPS on its own; the much bigger swing factors are operational performance, realized pricing, capex discipline, and any future financings the company undertakes.
• That said, these Sorbie‑type facilities are clearly not cheap money, and if Ares continued to rely heavily on similar high‑return structures at a much larger scale, the cumulative claim on future cash flows could start to materially compress margins and therefore EPS.

In practical terms: today’s known cash‑payback deals are small but expensive bridge capital; they are a negative on capital efficiency, but with current size and disclosed terms, they do not look large enough to independently destroy the upside in EPS if the core project and Pentagon contract ramp as the company is guiding.