I wouldn't say on their knees. But they might have their backs to the wall a bit more than they otherwise would have with some of the potential delays they might face.
It's certainly an interesting debate to critic the whole thing in hindsight though.
So on the one hand there would be those who would reckon that Sayona would have always been a good chance at fulfilling their ' unique ' blended Ore option and pitch for NAL. And proof of this would be the ' silencing ' by the Monitor of some early exuberance which was communicated to the ASX and shareholders back in 2019. There was also the endorsement which was more or less communicated by the First Nations peoples back in December 2019 when their agreement with Sayona was first signed.
And then there are others who would argue that it was the Piedmont investment and more the ' Off-take ' agreement which was also known to have Tesla's indirect involvement which went a considerable way to underpinning the Sayona bid with more support. Proof of this would be the Quebec Finance Ministers comment after that which was in part delighted with the strength of the BID , but also concerned with regards to the sovereignty issues of ultimately converting the lithium spod in Quebec.
So the reality is it is most likely a bit of both here. But there is no mistaking that the BID and it's ' portrayed ' uncertainty and concerns went right up to the death knock and almost into overtime in sporting parlance. So the likelihood might have been known , but these reactions as reflected by the market tensions and nervousness of ordinary nervous shareholders was clearly not.
So the Sayona BOD went onto leveraging this early support of the Piedmont Investment to setting about raising almost double that in the 1 for 6 rights issue , and when things got closer to the likelihood of a favorable results , Piedmont then elected to convert its notes 5 years earlier than what had originally been set out and clearly after the register had been diluted further and thereby not triggering an ASX waiver and ahead of the now looming and known 25 % / 75% acquisition structure.
So Sayona has to take a lot of credit for being instrumental in showing Quebec it had the capacity in being able to raise substantial amounts of capital.
So Piedmont in its Annual 10 K Report states that their investment went to some degree in " collectively giving Sayona Quebec the ability to fund the purchase of the NAL assets "
But if I've done my homework on Sayona's projected Cashflows and COH at end of September correctly , Sayona's oversubscribed SPP as it turned out was more than sufficient to have covered 100% of the final closing purchase costs leaving it with approximately up to $32 million in additional surplus current cash reserves And they could have gone considerably higher if they had of wanted to because as we all know , the SPP was oversubscribed by over 13 times.
So obviously they ( Sayona ) planned this buffer out for a reason. And I suppose it could have also been a conservative move in so far as if Piedmont had of gotten ' cold feet ' on the acquisition for whatever reasons. So my point here is that the NAL purchase would have gone through irrespective of whether Piedmont wanted to chip in it 25% final contribution or not.....whereas they make it sound as if that final amount was what got it over the line.
Now I know there is strength in selling whatever the narrative to your shareholders and greater investor base as I've said this before in that it is obviously far better to have TWO entities valued at over a $ billion to be looking for further ' Private Capital Funding ' than only ONE. So this should prove to be a very strong alliance moving forward with each of them in their own right now being quite viable stand alone businesses with the slight edge going towards Sayona as they obviously already have the Open pit , Concentrator , HydroMet conversion and other mine infrastructure already at development stage whereas Piedmont does not.
So it will be BOTH interesting and exciting to see how this ' Marriage ' of equals now develops and plays out.
(20min delay)