And remember while some are carrying on and making ' No Factual...

And remember while some are carrying on and making ' No Factual ' statements regarding Insto's selling BIG stakes , lets just review for a second the significance of the MASSIVE increase in interest with Sayona coming from the ' Collective ' increase from the BNP Paribas group of holders.

For those who don't remember or are not aware , BNP was chosen and appointed by Vulcan back in August to assist with its Bankable Feasibility Feasibility study and in structuring the required project finance .

BNP also helped Northvolt in securing its US$1.6 billion debt facility required in building Europe's largest battery factory.

BNP is also Europe's LARGEST bank and has won several awards in 20202 including Western Europe's best bank for sustainable finance as well as Global Advisor of the year by PFI ( Project Finance International )

They also helped Pilbara Minerals raise US$100 million from the Nordic bond which they again helped in refinancing in 2020 to a lower cost senior secured US$110 million debt facility which was obtained from BNP and the Australian Clean Energy Finance Corporation.

So it should be no surprise that BNP with its 5 separate holding balances sits just behind Ganfeng Lithium 5th spot , with its ' Collective ' 6th position holding of 161,177,242 total shares and 5.69% of the PLS register.

BNP also recently invested in a recent round of funding in GenCell Energy who specialize in Ammonia to Energy technologies with an $8 million contribution from their ' Energy Transition Fund ' . This BNP energy fund manages total assets of around $6 billion euros with a major focus being on the green energy sector.

They invested hundreds of millions of dollars into a company called Ballard Power Systems who is one of the largest clean energy solutions companies based on hydrogen fuel cells and currently trades at a market value of US$4.64 billion after being as high as US$11.48 billion back in February this year.

Here's what a couple of their executives had previously stated about Australian Lithium Plays ......and then you can pretty much work out from their how their ' SIGNIFICANT ' and growing stake in Sayona mining fits into their overall ' transition ' strategies.

You can also watch the short youtube clip ( below ) from back in 2020 to get a feel for what ' Type ' of Company is interested in Sayona mining.

“Australian producers with globally relevant resources need to invest and diversify downstream to capture a bigger share of the value chain” said Olivier Smeets, Head of Metals & Mining for Australia at BNP Paribas.

And then from Ted Ross - Head of Energy , Natural Resources , Project , Exports at Western Australia BNP said this :-

Until recently, banks have not regarded Australian lithium production as a viable financing opportunity, said Todd Ross, Head of Energy, Natural Resources, Project, Export, Western Australia at BNP Paribas. “The market wasn’t transparent – it lacked scale and reliable tools like accurate price reporting. In addition, offshore processing in China leaves us vulnerable to a price squeeze resulting from any policy changes there.”