General Discussion, page-1147

I see Pilbara Minerals is talking turkey with Gang Feng for a possible downstream tie-up. A powerful union in that Pilbara is one of the few tier one upstream lithium producers and apparently Gang Feng is top of the class for mid-stream operators. And there was Pall the Plod Graves only a few days ago taking a cheap shot at the likes of Pilbara for being too simple for his liking.

Also I see Neville Power, who ran Fortescue from 2011 to 2018, is getting involved in a hard rock lithium minnow, Future Battery Minerals, which has a prospect just south of Coolgardie. Strange how gun miners like Chris Ellison, Bill Beament and Nev Power all still see potential in smallish spodumene deposits in WA while the Plod, who in truth has better form managing portfolios than companies, cannot see it.

Arcadium continues to perform like a gutless wonder whereas with its geographical and functional spread of assets and it being listed on the deepest equity market in the world it should be a stock that shows resilience through periods of adversity. The first job for the Plod after the merger should have been to gain the support of major institutions but clearly he has not. I continue to think that strategically the merger of Livent and Allkem made sense though the terms that Allkem agreed to favoured Livent too much. Leading into the merger I thought the major flaw of the deal was letting an underperforming ex-Goldman banker take control. Graves has now had three months to show up his doubters but the reality is he has been predictably shite. No better proof of that is the woeful performance of the Arcadium share price in the last three months.