Seems like MIN might get their hands on Bald Hill: Alita...

Seems like MIN might get their hands on Bald Hill:

Alita Resources, one of Australia’s few in-production lithium mines, will be placed in liquidation on Friday, allowing the administrator and the China-connected company that controlled it to enter an exclusive agreement to sell the miner to a secret bidder.
It’s just the latest unorthodox step in the battle for control of its Bald Hill mine, which is currently selling its lithium on the cheap. The Australian on Wednesday revealed that Glencore and Sagex Capital had offered to buy the company’s debt and relist it for as much as $1.8bn.
Alita had been traded in Singapore and Australia and has been in the hands of administrators since 2019 when the price of the commodity critical to the world’s electrification slumped.

China Hydrogen Energy (CHEL) purchased all the debt and tried to take ownership of the company through a deed of company arrangement but was blocked by the Foreign Investment Review Board. CHEL then sold the debt to a related company, Austroid, but was again blocked by FIRB from taking control.
Alita administrator McGrathNicol said in a note to its Singapore shareholders it would seek to have the company placed in liquidation on Friday. McGrathNicol partner Rob Kirman wrote that the “identity of the third party … remain confidential until a share sale agreement has entered into”.
Mr Kirman said McGrathNicol would seek an interim injunction against Austroid to stop the debt holder from firing the administrator and to stop it selling assets or otherwise entering into agreements which could ruin the deal.
READ MORE: Glencore bids for Alita, eyes $1.8bn listing | FIRB rejects takeover of lithium miner Alita | Alita debt holder backtracks on firing McGrathNicol | Alita equity holders win right to fight for fair value
Alita equity-holder Canaccord and its law firm, Arnold Bloch Leibler, had been due back in the Supreme Court in October to argue that due to the four-year delay in the DOCA being effected, shareholders, who had lost all rights, should now have a seat back at the table.
ABL is likely to now try join the matter being heard on Friday.
The surprisingly aggressive statement from McGrathNicol – which has been criticised for only acting in the interests of the single debt holder Austroid rather than equity holders whose rights had expired – suggests this might not be as deal friendly to Austroid.
The Glencore/Sagex consortium is definitely not the secret preferred party and is understood to be furious about being refused due diligence by the administrator, as had LG Energy. One interested party questioned why there had not been an open process conducted to attract the highest bid.
Late Thursday the market was speculating that Mineral Resources might be the secret bidder.
McGrathNicol said that the chosen third party “is not related to the company and its subsidiaries, the directors and controlling shareholder of the company and their respective associates, the creditors of the company or any party to an agreement entered into by the company and its subsidiaries”.
Since entering administration, one director, Mike Que, has sat on the boards of CHEL, Austroid and the subsidiary that agreed to the dramatically below-market rate offtake agreement.
The interest from Glencore and other mining giants in the Bald Hill mine comes as the developed world scrambles to meet their net-zero carbon emissions targets.
Lithium is the key component in batteries used for electric vehicles and other green energy related products.
Prices for high-grade lithium, such as that produced by Bald Hill, have surged to more than $US6000 per tonne in the past 12 months.
The current market rate is $US3740 per tonne, having eased on a slowdown in demand from China, but is still more than double the $US1500 per tonne rate that Alita is selling it for.