O.K so where were we with the previous conversation before I went all ' Silent ' with divulging more information. And that wasn't on purpose by the way because as I stated , I had been still working on the ' Tie- Ups ' and threading together the overall theme which may or may not preside over our ( Sayona's ) future ' Private ' funding relationship or relationships.
So I believe we were at that point of honing in on our Sayona Quebec CEO who was actually the one who came out with the whole line and statement that the " Entire project would come from Private Funding ' So it definitely did not come from Brett Lynch . And it wouldn't have come out at all if Guy Laliberte didn't know something already. So it was a known thing which was probably NOT meant to be known at that time . And proof of this is that there has not been any further reference to that statement AT ALL from our BOD and / or Lynch himself.
But I think we can all agree here that there would have had to have been a conversation between Brett and Guy about what was likely to happen and then subsequent to that Guy just got a bit over-exuberant about the topic in his overall statement.
So that's the whole premise which sets us off investigating what I also mentioned at the time as being certain Industry ' Commonalities ' which we know can be drawn among many Industry Players , their locations of Mine and Resource to Markets , as well any other ' Common ' information beit financial or otherwise which links ONE or MORE Companies in the same overall industry to the same or similar vested entities , Investors or indeed Individuals.
And all of this isn't new because we have had our various ' Theories ' circling around at various times with some of them even being related to various Billionaire Family Investors who already have interests in Mining and other things etc.....
So there has obviously been the Desmairais Family of Quebec and their Vast mining connections including those involved in Graphite. There has also been talk of ;Pallinghurst having a further ' Dip ' into Quebec Lithium on top of their already large interest and investment in Nemaska as well as Nouveau Monde Graphite . We've talked about Sprott......but unfortunately not in a good way because he was actually backing one of the Opposition bidders. And there were other entities of course being thrown around like I.Q with more investment ( and that could still be true of course ) as well as Tesla , Ford etc.... But these aren't exactly something you would refer to as ' Private Funding ' unless of course it was Elon himself.
So that's what's happening over there in North America and Canada - but what then about the possibilities of ' Private Funding ' from Australia. O.K , so on that front , I've heard the likes of Reinhart and Forrest being thrown around .....and while you can never really dismiss these sorts of Individuals , they become less likely as you eliminate the ' Other Commonalities ' of both what they are doing and the steps into this Industry that they have already made and seem content with.
So are there any OTHERS is the real question we are left with.
And indeed there are when you look at some of the other ' Commonalities ' .
So what are these ' Commonalities ' .
Well the ones that I looked at making and putting this particular connection together virtually started from the FIRST ' Commonality ' which was what do a few of the companies I looked at who have ALL dealt with Novonix , what are the commonalities around their project locations , and what or who if any are the common Investor Entities including those Individuals who may be behind them and or the reasons why they seemingly ALL tend to gravitate back to.
I also took into account the commonality of the surge in importance of the Cathode and Anode downstream Battery Industry because this aspect is obviously ' Commonly ' connected to NOVONIX , but it is also something that is mentioned as the utmost important piece of the EV supply chain puzzle . And you will find this in reports report put out by Clean Energy Canada where they clearly state that to remain relevant and competitive , Canada must develop this ' Downstream ' capability of Anode and Cathode Manufacturing because the Battery itself and these components take far more labour ( something like 15 to 1 ) when compared to just the assembly and manufacture of the EV car itself.
We also know that Quebec has made its voice clear as well that through Quebec Hydro , Propulsion Quebec and other Battery think tanks at McGill U and other Bodies it has also established .....is very keen to foster and develop a totally integrated battery Components vis a vis Anode and Cathode Manufacturing HUB in Quebec.
So one of the commonalities I looked at was that it was obviously no mistake that NOVONIX through its research facility in Nova Scotia and the Grants received by Canada thus far, that this commitment to Canada and its Battery Research has resulted in in holding the rights to any subsequent battery technologies that drop out of this invested research and which relate to the Anode and Cathode and battery manufacturing processes. So no wonder their shares have gone berserk really and something I am more than pleased about of course ....being a holder since the $2 mark....... ) . And it should therefore be no secret that NOVONIX will indeed be the Entity behind any Anode or Cathode manufacturing facility in Canada and more than likely this will be set up in Quebec.
O.K , so we also know that Phillips 66 took a 16% stake in Novonix back on 10th August which was a key starting point for its near 100% increase in virtually only 6 weeks. Now we'll come back to Phillips66 later down the track but what got me really interested the more I looked into it was when you go down just one notch on the register of Novonix to that of the Entity the St. Baker Energy and Innovation Fund with their circa almost equivalent ownership of around 15.9%.
So just stepping back from who and what connections are tied back through St. Baker Innovation Fund , lets look at a couple of other tidy up issues regarding the Companies I looked at in this Exercise.
So apart from NOVONIX for obvious reasons , I looked at INR because of is clear ' commonality ' of its deal with the worlds 2nd largest cathode and battery precursor manufacturer in EcoPro Group , and also the fact that its main Rhyolite Ridge project is located in Nevada which is obviously located in North America and so this deal with EcoPro may be similarly compared to what might ultimately be a tie-up with Sayona and Novonix in Quebec.
I also looked at Anson because they too are working with Novonix in relation to its supersaturated Paradox brines project in Utah ....which is also obviously in the US and serving the markets of North America. And its interesting that with Anson's samples , Novonix had specifically compared cathode powder synthesized using commercial metal hydroxide and lithium precursors to Anson’s lithium product in order to what they ( Novonix ) state as to provide ' real-world comparisons ' and that Anson's 99.9% purity ultimately performed better relative to commercially available battery grade Li2CO3 under specific Novonix testing criteria. ( refer Anson announcement in regards there results. )
I also looked at both the Argentinian plays of BOTH Lake Resources with its Olaroz project and Millennial Lithium's Pasto Grandos project ..... with the ' Commonalities ' apart from being both brines and both located in the Americas , as well as Lake also working with Novonix , that BOTH have the high profile Investor backing from in the case of Lake , the Bill Gates indirect partnership with Lilac Solutions out of California where the 3 year deal with Lake would see Lilac working on projects in the Continental US in regards strategic and critical materials extraction. So lake got some funding from Lilac who of course the connections to Bill Gates comes from the backing of Lilac Solutions from the Gates Breakthrough Energy Fund together with MIT 's ' The Engine Fund ' which in turn backed Lilac and with this all happening back around February 2020.
Of course with Millennial , the posturing and maneuvering is obviously more current , but the commonalities of Location , Purity and where Millennial obtained its 99.96% back in March this year , and the fact that it is currently being fought over by BOTH Ganfeng and CATL brings it right into contention with respects to the ' Quasi ' Private or in this case ' State Owned ' enterprise interest in not just funding but acquiring the resource of Millennial holus bolus. So this makes it an interesting comparison to the other 3 companies. Interesting Rupfel's comments on Argentinian brines and Chinese Owned......
So where am I going with all this in regards to Sayona you say.
Well it comes back to the obviously strong connections to Novonix which in a way can be seen in the parallels to the similar performances of BOTH companies Share Prices as well.
So this thesis of mine regarding the potential ins and outs of the ' Private Funding ' will postulate that for starters , there is a strong correlation to our connections and ' Future ' connections to Novonix. And NOT just because of the work they are currently doing for us in regards to Proving up our ' Purity ' in Nova Scotia like Anson.
So it's more about the potential connections to Novonix's major shareholder as well in the previously mentioned St. Baker's Innovation Fund.
And the continuing thesis starts with the fact that St. Baker is NOT just involved with backing Novonix but is also involved in a number of other Energy Transformation , mobility , and Decarbonisation Projects .
And those of you who have looked into it would be well aware of their involvement in several other ventures including PureEv's which is the mob who have rolled out 200 odd e-bikes in the Philippines to replace their currently used Diesel bikes which is part of a deal with the local public transport service. Of course we know they are involved with Novonix on their journey to developing the ' Million Mile ' battery etc....etc... and with a lot of those initiatives happening right in Canada as we speak.
But they ( St. Bakers ) are also behind the Aussie Company TrueGeen Mobility who is partnered with the Buffett backed BYD for the roll out of electric cars and vans in Australia in collaboration with another Company they have backed being Evie Networks who already have 43 high speed chargers in Australia which can charge a car for 350 kilometres of range in only 10 minutes . While they are still relatively small , they are planning to roll out hundreds of additional fast charging charging stations in the main Cities within the next few years.
Interesting also that TrueGreen Mobility was a spin-out from impact investment firm TrueGreen Impact Group which had already been in the business of making the bodies of electric buses in NSW and Victoria.
And here's what St. Baker's CEO said about their $20 million investment in Evie Networks :-
" Rodger Whitby, CEO of Mr St Baker’s fund, said the $20 million financial injection was a “relatively small token of collaboration” and that the fund would spend tens or hundreds of millions of dollars expanding Evie Networks’ public charging sites."
But St. Baker are not strangers to having previously invested in LARGER transformative ' Green ' decarbonised plays because only a week or so before they advanced this $20 million to Evie , they were also involved in the Nasdaq listing of another electric vehicle charging play in the Company Tritium and where they ended up listing with a market value of US $2 Billion. So this isn't to shabby at all considering the return that St. Baker's original 25% stake in Tritium for $40 million back in 2013 is now worth some $385 million after Tritiums Nasdaq listing.
But it was how this deal with Tritium was done that the Thesis gets better. And part of it will touch on a topic that Split raised briefly and that is the increasing use of SPAC's ( Special Purpose Acquisition Companies ) which are sometimes referred to as ' Blank Cheque ' Companies and is a company with no commercial operations which is used to raise capital ahead of an IPO.
So with the Tritium Nasdaq Listing , the deal was put together by combining Tritium with a SPAC vehicle called ' Decarbonisation Plus Acquisition Corporation ' which if you look it up you will find that it was formed as a " blank check company formed for the purpose of effecting a merger, capital stock exchange, asset acquisition, stock purchase, reorganization or similar business combination with a target whose principal effort is developing and advancing a platform that decarbonizes the most carbon-intensive sectors. These includes the energy and agriculture, industrials, transportation and commercial and residential sectors."
DCRB as it has been abbreviated was actually ( and this is where it starts to get interesting folks ) was sponsored by an affiliate of Riverstone Holdings LLC which was intended to be a further expansion of Riverstone's 15-year franchise in low-carbon investments, where it had previously established industry leading , scaled companies with more than $5 billion of equity invested in renewables.
But as it turns out , they ( DCRB's ) - Parent Organisation isa company by the name of Ilwella Pty Ltd ........ AND WHO praytel should show up as owning ILLWELLA Pty Ltd ?
So if you search up a bit on Quentin Flannery , you will find that he currently serves as director of family companies, where he supervises trading investments and strategies andputs his center of attention on resources , trading, and energy investments.
So not only do we have a strong Connection through Novonix - St. Baker Innovation Fund and Australia's Philanthropist Quentin Flannery , we also have a connection through the Vanguard Group who are the No. 1 shareholder in not only Tesla , but also Novonix's now new no. 1 shareholder in Phillips66.
On top of that folks , I would like you to consider also the ' Blank Check ' company DCRB - not only because they also recently did a deal with Hyzon Motors Inc which is a Hydrogen Mobility play with a focus on the commercial vehicle market and a specific emphasis on the higher emissions diesel driven heavier trucks and bus markets. And it's interesting that in the e-mobility space , the St Baker fund had clearly been more focused on investing in electric rather than hydrogen vehicles because as it had previously been reported as stating that : - " it wanted to be doing business now rather than investing in future possibilities "
So there is a clear collaboration going on here despite Flannery's DCRB additional ' Hydrogen ' play that they still significantly worked together with the Tritium Nasdaq listing which is in the complete opposite end of the EV spectrum......at least one would think given St. Bakers statement of doing it ' NOW '
However I would like you to also consider that because of who they( DCRB ) have been aligned with in respects to Riverstone Holdings , is that the 2 joint co-founders and joint Senior Managing Directors in David Leuschen and Pierre F. Lapeyre Jr. are also the ones to keep a close eye and watch on , and for the same reasons why Pallinghurst made a grab for a stake in Nemaska.
David of course comes from a more traditional background from Goldman Sachs with Pierre ALSO being the ex- Managing Director of Goldman's as well. So the pedigree here folks is BOTH deep and rich in talent and desire to make a difference in the area of Energy Transformation and Decarbonisation.
Now I know this piece reads like an absolute ' Book '....so take your time and digest the overall theme being floated. But I would encourage everyone to listen into David Leuschen from Riverstone Holdings LLC in regards to his important views and take on this overall ' Transformation ' Industry .
So whether you feel you know all this already or not , it is interesting when you hone in on these very strong connections which ultimately lead right back to Australia with Stl Bakers Innovation Fund and Quentin Flannery........
Below is the Attached Youtube Video where you can have a listen into if you get some free time over the weekend . At the least , it should give you t an additional insight and perspective into the Industry and in particular the sheer amount of ' Private Capital which has in his words come available in support of Decarbonisation initiatives and Investments.
Have a good one.......
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VIDEO
(20min delay)