Brett having been seen at Melbourne Airport ....if true would makes sense as Dougal is ' Live ' at one of my Broker together with Core and Inoneer for a presentation. So who else are they meeting with in the Melbourne ' Broking ' establishment next week. A week when the 940 odd million gets ' Traded Live '
And what better way to link up if you consider for a moment that Both BHP & RIO still have their corporate head offices based right here in Melbourne.
In fact they ( Brett & Dougal ) might even be able to kill two birds with one stone by simply going to 120 Collins Street where you'll find Rio Tinto up on level 43. Sayona's No. 2 shareholder affiliate Citigroup is on level 16 while Morgan Stanley is located a couple floors below on 14 with even Australia's own home grown outfits Ord's on Level 23 and its competitor and arch rival Shaw Partners on level 36. Hell you might even find it somewhat astonishing that Bank of America - Merrill's is also located at 120 Collins street on level 19. More on their connections to Sayona later.
And obviously , you can't even remotely make a case against the fact that ' Word ' and strategies don't travel and get around in this corporate advisory and deal making and collaboration's of the backroom powerhouse fraternities . And even Livent's recent ' Marriage ' of equals so to speak were advised by Morgan Stanley.....who are right their in amongst it in Melbourne's corporate ' Elite '. And it's often a fierce rivalry between some of them as evidenced by Shaw's who are only 13 floors above Ord's were seen to pinch Ord's head of private wealth management in George Deva in December 2022 after already grabbing one of its most senior Ord advisors Tony Mitchell a month or so earlier and taking a rumored $400 million client book with him.
And we already know that Rio is definitely INTERESTED in more M&A as evidenced by its US$825 acquisition in the Rincon Mining projects just 12 months ago followed by its buyout late in 2022 of the Canadian based Turquoise Hill owned Mongolian copper project for $3.3 billion .
Interesting that Rincon was primarily already owned at the time of Rio's acquisition by Private Equity which 120 collins street is also home to by the likes of Bain & Co on level 37 and Blackrock investment management on level 18.
But coming back to my above reference to Merrill's ...... , and lets call it the ' Manhattan Connection ' - its interesting when you examine this connection through the differences between the TWO ' Becoming Substantial ' holders notices from State Street which show the changes emanating from 18th May and 25th May . So firstly , we all know the relevancy of Bank America / Merrill's , and the original pass the parcel shorting which commenced back in September 2022. And we also can see that by comparing this connection between these dates , that their ( State Street's ) control and right to dispose on lent share had only increased by 240,517 while the overall totals show a DECREASE of 271,330.
Buts what even more interesting is not just the static nature of the NIL movement in BOTH Northern Trust Company's entries held by state street ...or even the fact that these Northern Trust entries had only increased by 7,569,953 since the 13th December 2022 change of notice , and being the last one prior to these recent 2 notices.
But what's more interesting here is this rather inconspicuous and innocuous connection to Piedmont's MD Keith Philips and perhaps this obscure Norther Trust Company . And that is the connection of Northern Trust's CEO and Chairman of the Board of Northern Trust's Michael O'Grady and Piedmont's President & CEO.
So we all know KP's illustrious career as a Wall Street Merchant Banker background , but what most have probably not put together is fact that not only are both these Guy's similar in age with BOTH completing parts of their education in Chicago ( KP at University of Chicago and O'Grady at Notre Dame just outside of Chicago ) , O'Grady and Phillips BOTH served as Managing Director's at Merrill Lynch at EXACTLY the same time during their careers - so would have definitely known each other. And I guess that's also the reason by no mistake that we saw Bank of America executives sitting across from BL and GL at Sayona's offices in Quebec.
So by extension of these commonalities , I think it is fair to say that Piedmont through its business ties of KP are in fact connected in some way. The mere fact that KP was head of Mining and Investment banking teams at Merrill's would suggest this is a very high probability. Throw in O'Grady's tenure at Merrill's as MD of its Financial Institutions and Investment Banking Group at Merrill's with their respective backgrounds and you can see even further the support for this connection. And its interesting that the overall position of Northern Trust seems content with the status quo on its position spanning at least this 4 months period evidenced by the movement in these notices.
So I guess does BL or Dougal pay a visit to Merrill's or Morgan Stanley or whoever while he may or may not be visiting someone else at 12 Collins Street.
And might we see another lithium industry OVERATURE subsequently following ALL these road shows and broker presentations.
Because there definitely is something more ' secretive ' in play it seems in how Sayona sets about doing things as against what we see in other everyday examples of what others in the Industry are doing. Is it really because we have more complex negotiations in play like advanced lithium chemical offtakes , funding across separate projects and mineral reserves , or perhaps even defense related requirements for our materials.
Or could it be more about the trust issue with our BOD and its previous failings ' hangover ' from Altura which is perceived in the financial world as giving rise to concerns as to previously being burnt and or even some level of ' white anting ' which may be happening behind the scenes from previous behemoths like CATL who had been involved to some level in our operations previously. Could that be more the reasons our BOD are being mostly tight lip about anything we seemingly do or put out there in terms of developments which can be seen and compared by others in the Industry.
Were there actually problems with the previous carbonate product runs which could explain why we're stuck with all these bags of product. Why weren't they distributed ( even if they were samples ) and were these the types of questions B of A were probing into at the time of BL's meeting. We've heard nothing from the industry circles , but that doesn't necessarily mean certain executives of these organisations hadn't been talking. And there has been much fluff and talk about ' Chrystalizer ' circuits this and that , and capital purchases and photo's of packaged carbonate ....., but the fact of the matter is that by all accounts were these Carbonate capital items ever actually acquired by North American Lithium........
I would say not .
Because we can see through various press releases that NAL had announced its intentions to restart its Hydromet mining operation on 6th December 2017using Veolia's patented HPD evaporation and chrystallization technology but wasn't actually announced by Veolia until February 13th 2019 that this system had been chosen by NAL . However it was only a month later from that announcement that NAL was under the protection of its last solvency administration.
So were those BAGs of carbonate labelled North American Lithium containing carbonate which was produced in China from NAL spod and returned to it so as to market to prospective North American battery makers at that time......battery makers which were few and far between at that time. Consequently , this carbonate product or at least what is still there was NEVER actually distributed.
To label a bag of product with your own name seems more something that would be done if it were supplied back to you ' as a customer rather than if you were the Producer / Supplier of the finished stock. And we would have been no experts in providing packaging either. The fact they are on pallets with were shrink wrapped would suggest they arrived that way at the NAL plant. Keep in mind that NAL had only reached commercial production of its spodumene in September 2018 and was then in administration by March 2019. So I highly doubt they would have been already producing carbonate within 6 months of reaching nameplate only on its spod......even though they had obviously had trials done by someone who confirmed their spod had produced 99.4 % purity on its Carbonate converted end product.
So this would then start to make perfect sense in that we DON'T actually know if we can produce with absolute success a lithium carbonate product because we haven't actually done so yet. Someone else has , and that is why the whole thing seems to be dragging. It has only been done on paper . Do we even have the expertise outside of these consultancies we are using like Hatch etc....
So this would at least explain in part as to why the so called ' in the know ' institutional shorts have taken a more wait and see or reserved approach to ascribing value in this regard. And who else knows this. Kieth Phillips right ? Is this why he also made the public statements that we were ' Fully Valued ' . And has his former colleagues in the Investment banking Industry followed his lead in this regard.
So even this uncertainty wold lead one to believe ...or indeed more question this whole thesis of why it constantly looks as though Sayona is always the bridesmaid and NOT the bride . Whether its regarding off-takes or future chemical partners. Something definitely has to give , and the door and the invitation as I see it is still very much open waiting for these ' skills ' to be injected into Sayona's partnership for Lithium Chemicals production. With , the BIGGER questions still remaining as to WHO and on WHAT TERMS will that be.
And therein lies the added complexities. Brokering the correct deal for not only BL and his team but also ALL shareholders including the often neglected and seemingly under appreciated.
Only time will tell I guess , but I am not just starting to believe this to be the case but am more convinced that these are the primary reasons we are both experiencing this stagnation on our SP with the participation of the shorter's as well as the ' secrecy ' and feedback stating that things are complex and are being worked on. How hard can they be unless they really are hard. Because if it isn't hard and we the common shareholders can on the ' surface ' see it as NOT being hard then it can only be incompetence and / or ineptness in having the skills to get it done . Either that or I think they think we are just stupid.
So I don't think it is the former two and more like the fact that OUR negotiations are deeper and much more complex given BOTH our structure and our projects. And at least part of this was by design in my opinion. And right from the outset. I'm referring of course back to our association with Piedmont Mining. Its complicated because we are ' joined ' at the hip with them.
And after all , wasn't it another original Industrialist Baron Investment Banker & Financier J.P Morgan who stated that you cannot " unscramble eggs ".
Lets just hope that whatever BL and KP , Dougal , and the rest of the Sayona Team have up their sleeve can prove ' ol ' JP wrong and more take what they currently have and constructed with the eggs and " improve the omelette " as Penny Wong once stated in 2017 speech.
I have a sneaking suspicion that they ultimately can......and will......
But I will leave you all with this funny clip which I think pretty much sums up everything happening on this forum most of the time and what posters think is happening at any given time but probably isn't actually. Like ALL that ridiculous fearmongering banter tossed around by certain posters regarding the debt ceiling issues in the US. Issues which have typically and historically ALWAYS been around and never caused an issue . Par for the course but if some get mileage out of scaring and panicking others then they are the ones you really need to be war and suspicious of.......
VIDEO
Did you know that Mitsubishi is in that building, also on Level 36?
(20min delay)