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Street Talk
Red Dirt Metals raising $20m, two mystery players buy in


When ASX-listed Western Australia explorer Red Dirt Metals entered a trading halt on 10am Friday, fund managers waited for term sheets to hit their inboxes.

Street Talk.  Louie Douvis
But the terms never arrived.
And Street Talk understands Red Dirt’s capital raise was a buyer-led shares issue for two big North American mining specialists.
Watchers reckoned NYSE-listed Albemarle Corporation wasn’t one of Red Dirt’s new shareholders as it’s already stumped up US$1.3 billion for ASX-listed Mineral Resources’ spodumene mine in WA’s Wodinga.
There’s still many other pure-play lithium North America players of scale ranging from NYSE-listed Livent Corporation and Lithium Americas to ASX-listed Piedmont Lithium.

Whoever it is, will surely end up among the largest shareholders as Red Dirt’s only a $140 million odd market capitalisation.
Red Dirt (previously known as TNT Mines) has traditionally been a gold explorer. But it made an almost serendipitous move into lithium last year.
In September last year, it paid $11 million to buy a gold-copper asset Mt Ida and stumbled on lithium potential in the seller’s data. Early drilling found spodumene rich pegmatites. Shares have more than doubled since first lithium potential confirmation.
Sources said Canaccord Genuity was the broker on the buyer-led raise, given it led Red Dirt’s (or TNT Metals, as it was then called) last capital raise.


Red Dirt Metals raising $20m, two mystery players buy in (copyright link)