I wouldn't put much weight on the comments made by SB around the...

I wouldn't put much weight on the comments made by SB around the value of in production lithium miners. They were made at a point in time where multiple smaller in production companies had folded/been bought out. For example Bald Hill got excluded from the sample. All that were left were several large Australian hard rock miners. Two of those were doing pretty well as separate circa $3b companies and they decided to merge and become a $6b company (and through share price growth now A$9b). That didn't mean Core should have a $6b value (and SB would have known that) but some of the investors lapping up the comment may not have.

With respect Allkem's market cap isn't really that important in valuing Core. While they are in the same industry, they are very different companies.

What is probably more relevant is looking at the size of proven and probable hard rock reserves for fully funded to production or in production hard rock companies and how that relates to market cap.