On top of general market uncertainty and lacklustre sentiment in...

On top of general market uncertainty and lacklustre sentiment in lithium, the lack of clarity and direction from management here exacerbates the downward moves.
More projects = more balls to juggle, recent announcements of redundancies in argentina (to curbe costs), question marks re potential closure of Mt Catlin, delays at various ongoing projects and painfully slow progress on new development gives investors enough to pause and evaluate other opportunities.

Sure the combined entity has some of the best projects globally and a reasonably well diversified portfolio, exposure to high EV growth jurisdictions and OEMs, but at the end of the day execution will dictate how well the company does long term. To date, despite the multiple mergers, it continues to be leapfrogged by newcomers in the space.

A simpler approach, reduced technical requirements have served WA based entrants better.

Pilbara currently carries twice the valuation of the combined livent / allkem group which as I've been saying for a very long time is warranted given the slow progress here and rapid expansions at simpler hard rock operations. Sure margins may not be as high but volume and simplicity more than makes up for that. Market values cashflow, certainty and execution not a 100ktpa lce pipeline that is like a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.

The biggest risk here now is that a major comes in with an opportunistic bid and takes out the newly consolidated entity.

Aimo