Yes I have never seen so many clueless and ridiculous posts since ALB was forced to pull its bid because of Gina. I do recommend that they not be read and completely ignored as they add nothing, unless you want a giggle. They feed on the temporary uncertainty now created by the withdrawal of ALB and Gina's lurking presence. Why do they want the price to drop? easy because they want to buy it at a lower price. Maybe they will be able to or maybe they won't. We shouldn't care unless we are ourselves traders, if we are LTH holders then their posts are completely irrelevant to us.
Now, what can we say could reasonably happen from here with LTR:
1. The TH was quickly put in place for the "finalisation of funding". As
@anatol has already pointed out LTR did not say that the TH was for "arranging" funding. The fact that it was for the "finalisation of funding" implies that it will be complete when announced. Then we had a suspension of quotation of securities. This is not unusual and it is because a few details are not nailed down yet. The benefit of the suspension is that it can easily be extended and may very be extended over the weekend and into next week in order to finalise the funding. This is good.
2. To me this tells me that there will be no CR at all or a very limited one and that a full and complete funding package will be announced. If they need a little more time I would encourage them to take it. I would also expect that many parties from all around the world are kicking down LTR's door to offer finance in return for off take tonnage or some other concession. They probably need more time to find the best offers and finalise them.
3. I would expect Gina to offer funding in return for a place on the board but I would expect her to be rebuffed firmly. TG does not want her on the Board IMO and definitely does not want her money. If she provided funding then she could bleat that she was right and that LTR needs her. I very much doubt TG and the Board want to give her that leverage.
4. I would not be surprised if ALB offered some funding in return for off take tonnage. This is not as ideal for them as buying LTR 100% but it is the next best thing. I would expect the Board would be happy with that and may accept.
5. Remember that ALB gave the KV mining operation and the management a clean bill of health. That is great news for us as it is clear they would have proceeded but for Gina. This means that any downrampers or analysts who try and tell us that KV still faces operational and mining risks are not listening to ALB, the biggest lithium hard rock miner and refiner in the world. I think we can safely assume that they did not identify any major issues.
6. There are three risks that LTR faces when it comes to a proper market valuation. A. Funding (about to be resolved); B. Operational and Mining risks (our own management has dismissed this as has ALB a few days ago) and C. The prediction that there will be a supply/demand lithium deficit is a fantasy and the lithium price crashes and stays low for a decade (this is contrary to what we see from every intelligent commentator from Elon Musk, Joe Lowry, ALB, PLS, Benchmark, the mainstream press and common sense given the exponential increase in EVs and the knowledge of how long it takes to get a lithium mine online. Why do we think ALB wanted to buy us and why GR paid $1.3B for 19.9% of us?) So that leaves the risks for us as WW3 or another great depression or the sudden discovery of an easy substitute for lithium. Yes the SP will factor in that we are not yet producing, but all the risks have now been addressed with funding IMO.
7. I also believe that first production will only be about 6 months away now given how fast LTR is putting this together, and also remember that we will be producing SC6. This advantage has been explained in great detail by Anatol and Scarpa in the past.
So despite what the non-holders say, I see this as all great news and we thank Gina for allowing us to go mining, but with her just as a large shareholder, not as management. No doubt some of the naysayers will try and undermine what I am predicting. Fair enough I suppose, but they would be wasting their time. Next week we will see how close I was. Even with a large CR the resolution of funding addresses the last risk for LTR and then we can just sit back and wait a little longer. Once we start selling SC6 it is completely different universe for us and the market will value us in different terms at a much higher rate. A lithium price correction upwards in the next 2-3 months will also assure us of the large dividends we all want.
There seems to be a strong feeling from the LTHs here that we should support and back TG, TO and the LTR Board. I support that 100%.
(20min delay)