Believe acknowledgement of extremely favourable financing terms has been made in the past on both sides.
Commercial bank financing and strategic partnership deals cannot be compared. Ford facility was entered into when spod was c.u$5k/t and concerns re shortage of spodumene were near their peak. LG is a convertible albeit at a lofty premium. That cost remains unknown and will look far worse if prices do recover to levels above the conversion price.
Ford facility has no maintenance covenants which is a massive help in today's pricing environment.
The unknown remains the offtake pricing terms, you dont get extremely favourable financing without some sort of tradeoff elsewhere, its why everyone else in the sector has chosen the bank debt path, either that or they are all silly (this isnt limited to lithium companies).
Its a fine balance, getting favourable finance and retaining commercial leverage on offtake and pricing. You dont typically get the best of both worlds unfortunately.
Aimo
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