Running discussion on SP, page-54911

Agree re FIRB … the poster is was referring to I think was suggesting that FIRB could be involved in stopping CATH taking the remaining 51%.

Regardless of whether likely or not I was trying to point out that FIRB would have no skin in that game as the project is not held directly by AVZ. Totally normal of course, even the miners with resources in Australia don’t hold the project assets in the “main” vehicle. Eg ALO held the true assets of AJM and AJM had 100% ownership of ALO - that allows separation of various corporate aspects and also allows swift reallocation of assets with less direct impact to the “main” vehicle.

For AJM it allowed the sale of ALO to PLS without involvement of shareholders of AJM.

For AVZ it allowed the sale of 24% of the Manono project to CATH again without direct shareholder interest and also without any FIRB interest. Same would not have been the case for sale of ALO to an overseas entity because the underlying asset and the company being sold (ALO) we’re both Australian. Not the case for AVZ and the Manono project.

None of this of course has anything to do with any likelihood of any TO or further sale - it’s just the purely objective technicalities of FIRB involvement. The chatter about TO I think is all just blown up by some seeking an immediate “return”. I’ve no doubt the big pots like RIO, BHP, Wesfarmers, BP, Shell etc will get into the lithium game more and more as time goes by. But they’re not interested in the risk factors associated with current operations - they want something a little more settled and developed to jump in I think (which they can wait for while they reposition their existing mining assets and balance sheets accordingly while also awaiting public perception and “need” to shift a little further yet).