Hi
@Country Writer,
I've been thinking about what 'monetising the lithium' may mean.
As i previously mentioned, at one of the roadshows back in 2018, mention was made of four possible options for Manna:
1. Project development by BRB
2. JV
3. Spin it off
4. Sell it
At the time, and ever since, there has been mention of not letting Manna take the focus of the gold and Bombora. That is something that i think is wise.
So looking at the options above, and in keeping with the title of this thread, i'll start with #3.
3. Spin it offSomeone (possibly
@Just4kicks) mentioned that NAV had previously spun-off a rare earth project in the Cummins Ranges. The inference was that as Tom had previously been at NAV so there was a precedent of this happening before.
Navigator Spun-off the Cummins Range Project into a company called Kimberley Rare Earths (ASX:KRE) around October 2011. NAV (Navigator) shareholders were offered a 1:20 in speccie distribution of 1 KRE share for every 20 NAV shares they held (provided shareholders had a minimum of 10,000 NAV shares). The were also offered a preference offer in the IPO of 2:1. I.e. 2 new KRE shares at 20c (the IPO offer price) for every 1 NAV share held.
The issue here is that Tom left NAV on 14/5/2009, at least two years before the rare earth project was spun off.
In December of 2012, KRE changed its name to Anova Metals (ASX:AWV) which is still listed today.
A quick look through the announcements around this time shows KRE withdrew from the project due to changes in REE prices and a negative assessment of development options. KRE returned a 25% JV interest back to NAV along with a payment of $350,000 to get out of a $6.8m project commitment. AWV then headed off on a new strategic direction becoming involved in the Big Springs Gold project in Nevada in the USA.
So much for the history lesson.
So, i started thinking about your timeframe for an ipo listing. It certainly fits.
However, when you look at the T-12 week timeframe, a new entity must be registered with ASIC.
Now i have no idea what the new company would be called but i though Manna may be a good starting point so i headed over to the ASIC website and started searching. No companies have been registered with this name. Thinking about other possible names would be like trying to pick six winning numbers in tonight's lotto draw so i started thinking laterally.
A new company would also require a website for information, a prospectus etc. If you already had a relationship with a service provider for an existing company, it would make sense to contact them in the first instance.
Using a reverse search i found the ip address associated with Breaker:
Now of the 337 other entities associated with Mammoth Media Pty Ltd, none are related to a new company (several were mining companies but have existed for some time).
Now CW, you know what i do for a living and i'm not expert on any of this. I could have missed the mark by a mile but after a week or so, i've come to the conclusion that we are not going to see a spin-off.
So if i have correctly joined the dots, what does that mean in terms of monetising Manna?
1. Project development by BRB - Since the rhetoric has always been not taking the focus off Bombora, i think this is the least likely option.
4. Sell it - Short term gain, miss out on any potential upside
So i'm left with:
2. JV - Breaker retains a portion of the project with exposure to any upside at little or no cost. It may also explain the 'delay' whilst technicalities are ironed out, DD occurs and lawyers do their thing?
Anyway, best i go and do so real work now.
Regards,
Perdy
