I voted yes.If I recall correctly, the American market was never...

I voted yes.

If I recall correctly, the American market was never a factor of why I voted yes, feel free to check my post history as I could be wrong, but some posters did push it. It’s clear now the US markets value current and near-term profits far higher than growth potential.

The main reason to vote yes was all about having more brine assets on the far left of the cost curve, and Western integrated chemical conversion. It’s a stronger business to invest in. This came at the expense of having more Argentina country risk, which is a real risk factor and explains some of the worse relative share price performance.

If the low price environment persists for years to come, then there’s a high chance that we will see that thesis of brine and Western conversion being better come to fruition. No one can really say with conviction that the Chinese can’t or won’t ramp up their own supply to meet demand for years yet; we really just don’t know. All we know with conviction is that lithium chemical demand still exists, and it’s likely for persistent deficits to exist again in the future. So until that happens, there’s still time for share prices of certain non-integrated spodumene produces to plummet. To paraphrase the cliche “past performance doesn’t necessarily mean better future results”.

IMO LTM isn’t the best lithium company to be in if you’re betting on a fast price recovery. It’s likely that companies like PLS can scale quicker with spodumene in good times. If the Argentina risks can be tolerated it’s really a minimum 3-5 year hold. Now I predict LTM will be a winner relative to everyone’s share price if any or all of the following happens:
1. Prices stay suppressed for years to come.
2. Western car companies or governments decide they only want to invest in secure Western chemical supply. There’s less than a handful of Western companies that can make lithium chemicals on commercial scale outside of China, so who else can they go to.
3. Arcadium has significantly higher realised lithium sales prices than competitors because of floor pricing arrangements, and are making solid profits while others struggle to make any.
4. ALTM meets their growth targets approximately on time and budget.

Because of my thesis, these prices are an absolute blessing for me. I never thought I would ever get the chance to buy this around $5 or possibly lower ever again.

IMO it’s also very uncertain that if AKE remained as a stand-alone entity it would have had a higher share price.