Activists Pressure Rio to Ditch London for ASX

Karoon activists achieved a ‘first strike’ vote against the company's rem report

May 24, 2024

The Pre-Start

  • Leo Lithium received the initial funds for the sale of its stake in Goulamina while committing to return 100% of the first tranche (US$161m) after taxes have been paid (LLL)

  • Monadelphous secured new construction and maintenance contracts totalling $120m, across projects with Newmont at Lihir, Rio in the Pilbara and at the Dalrymple Bay coal terminal (MND)

High Grade It

  • BHP is adamant there will be no further change to the value nor the structure of the final offer it lobbed this week for Anglo (AFR)

  • Rio is under pressure from activists to switch its primary listing from London to Australia, similar to what BHP did 2 years ago (Mining.com) - This reasoning reminds us of a slide we saw in BHP’s pitch to Anglo American shareholders which argues that big ASX miners benefit from the huge, regular inflows of superannuation money:

  • Peter Dutton told energy producers & miners he’ll halve project approval timelines and release new gas fields annually for development as he fights for West Coast support (AFR)

  • Karoon Energy’s activists achieved a ‘first strike’ vote against the remuneration report and the company has committed to outlining a capital framework by July (AFR)

  • Lithium miners want to establish a “coalition of the willing” to set up a trading exchange in a bid to stop price volatility and attract commercial bank financing (AFR)

  • China is preparing to snap up a record volume of cobalt for its state reserves this year, with prices languishing near their lowest levels since 2019 (Bloomberg)

  • Zimbabwe’s state-owned miner Kuvimba Resources said its lithium assets are attracting potential investors from both China & other countries (Bloomberg)

  • Gold fell to a week low, while platinum is up over 10% for the month and silver has held over US$30/oz (Reuters)

  • Mineral sands player, Image Resources, received ministerial approval for its Atlas project (BusinessNews)

Wheelin’ n Dealin’

  • South32 is open to buying Anglo’s share of two manganese JVs, should they come for sale, according to Graham Kerr (Reuters)

  • Failed potash miner, Kalium Lakes, is selling for parts at auction (BusinessNews)

  • Diatreme extended its offer period in its takeover of Metallica, with the company now holding a 56% interest in the target (DRX)

  • SSR Mining closed the sale of the San Luis project for US$5m in upfront cash and up to US$37.5m in contingent payments, to Highlander Silver (SSR)

Rattlin’ the Tin

  • True North Copper launched a $23 million underwritten capital raising yesterday, consisting of a $7.6 million placement and a $16.7 million entitlements offer (TNC)

  • Tasmanian tin developer, Stellar Resources raised $10 million, cornerstoned by Regal and Paradice who took $7 million (SRZ)

  • Argosy Minerals raised US$5 million from strategist investor, Amperex Technology (AGY)

  • AIC Mines raised $57m via a placement (A1M) Is debt financing to be announced soon?

Word on the Decline

  • When Gold Road’s MD, Duncan Gibbs was asked at yesterday’s AGM about the rationale for having a crack at Greenstone, this is what he had to say:

  • This is the first time we have heard a management team describe their core competency as “managing [non-controlling] joint ventures” 🤷

  • If the relative value is compelling, we’d implore a larger gold miner to consider hostile M&A here, they might even have half a chance if the front door isn’t working

In the Weeds

  • David Einhorn, the famed investor, recently gave a great presentation on value investing and more. Well worth a watch (YouTube)

  • Recharge (Battery Materials Review podcast) discussed stationary energy storage, China stimulus and EV developments in their latest pod

  • Saudi Arabia signed deals to buy electricity from two large-scale wind farms that are cheaper than natural gas plants, as it aims to rapidly transition to a bigger share of renewables in the power grid (Bloomberg)

  • There’s a new podcast series covering the Bre-X scandal from BBC, The Six Billion Dollar Gold Scam

Were you forwarded this email from someone else?

Today’s Top Tweet

If you caught Hadley Natus’ appearance in our tin spectacular a few weeks ago, he expands on his Cinderella analogy here.

Devil’s in the Detail

Did you catch this detail in True North Copper’s capital-raising deck yesterday?

This entire series of events smells really bad from where we sit. Our base case expectation was that the money from a mining fund that we could find no other record of would always fall through. And here we are. Yet the news gets cleansed simultaneously with a cap raise. Great.

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Disclaimer

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