Allkem General Discussion, page-4041

Articulate? More whiny pom than articulate to my ears. I was a bit disappointed he didn't break out into a rendition of Love Me Do or I Am the Walrus. And what's with the discrete "previous finance connections" reference? He was a senior creep at Goldman Sachs for more than five years, no more no less, the same outfit that seems to have had two goes in recent times at crashing the lithium price. There are investment bankers and then there is the Vampire Squid. And nothing he said in that interview is stuff I've not heard before: just a cold-call encyclopedia salesman, again, no more no less. I reckon the dearth of questions he got at the end was likely because participants would have realised that this was a snow job and any answer given would be all spiel and floss.

I do see some sense in Allkem and Livent merging - earlier this year I actually asked on these threads whether the idea could have legs - but in my view there is no way that Livent should end up being the dominant side in the deal. As niu perceptively commented, for 80 years Livent has been producing lithium chemicals for everything but batteries and under Pall Graves they have largely missed the EV train: Allkem is like their get out of jail card. But with 50% of the board (plus Peter Coleman who gets to keep his snout in the trough but clearly has no loyalty to Allkem shareholders) and the CEO and CFO the harsh reality is that Livent is angling to take over Allkem's assets. I noted the pom's comment that of course the new company will maintain some level of corporate presence in Argentina and Australia and China and in other places not in the US. Very generous of him seeing that virtually none of the new company's operations and a minority of its shareholders are in the US (absolute bullshit that a big lithium producer has to be hq'ed in the US, the biggest resource companies are just as likely to be from Australia or Canada or South Africa than the US). As with their car industry the yanks are a shadow of their former selves in the resource sector (even the IRA is about forming supply chains from other countries). Martin MD indicated that he would like to see the new company increase its footprint in Australia while the Squidman Graves almost but not quite committed to come down to Australia maybe once.