At the end of FY23 MinRes had net debt of about $1.9b but you...

At the end of FY23 MinRes had net debt of about $1.9b but you seem to have walked around that I was making a comparison about leadership.

In terms of leadership, blokes such as Chris Ellison and Ken Brinsden are like the Monet and Van Gough of lithium miners while Pall the Plod Graves is like an ex art critic who has taken up the brush but only paints by numbers.

When times got tough what did Brinsden do?: stepped up and took the reins at Patriot. What about Ellison?: pushed on with his vision to create a network of lithium operations in southern WA (to the applause of Global Lithium and Bill Beaumont's Develop - how often do you see mining execs give kudos to other companies?). And what did the Plod do?: pulled the handbrake on all those growth projects that Arcadium has. The leaders are heading to where the puck is going - the lithium price is currently below the marginal incentive price so will rise - whereas old pommy mate has taken off his skates and benched himself. (red-lining with the mixed metaphors I know...)

As for "It’s best if Arcadium is done with Australian lithium. It’s irrelevant for the company if they have Australian mines or not." That's about the dumbest comment I've read on hc in 2024. WA is THE premier mining jurisdiction in the world, it dominates iron ore, gold, and lithium and packs a punch in multiple other minerals, the ASX is THE best capital conduit for speculative mining, WA has the most comprehensive mining services sector and pretty much all lithium majors are either active in WA or would like to be active in WA. Arcadium has an advantage in already having an existing hard rock mine and processing plant in WA and the only reason Arcadium cannot remain active in WA is due to a lack of managerial nous and imagination from the Plod.

Leading up to the merger vote we were told that the company had to have primary listing on the NYSX because it was the deepest market (which is true) and had the best knowledge of chemicals processing (which is also true) and that as an efficient market would better reward good performance and management. The reality is that the merge share price is down 30% in three months since listing and the company has shown none of the resilience you would expect from a high growth, highly diversified operator trading in an efficient market. It is my view that the market is marking Arcadium down for the lack of management skills of Pall Graves just as it did so to Livent for the 6 years it was listed and run by Graves.