"Until Lindian reaches its real value ( over a $billion) I cannot entertain any opportunistic approaches for my shares."... I think you protest too much. Any opportunistic approach would send LIN MC flying towards $1B, while probably not getting accepted anyway if it fell short by sub-holders who didn;t think it good risk-reward value. I'd be very entertained
LYC must still be smarting they got conned by Malawi corruption way back and bought the rights to Kanga from a party didn;t have the right to sell it. From my limited knowledge, seems the Malawi courts have done a good job upholding the law over many years of dispute, including recently when vendors settled out of court with LIN rather than try the courts when they had no legal leg to stand on. My take away is a big tick for Malawi sovereign risk compared to other African countries where contracts/ownership are much more... fluid.
Doubt LYC would move this early but it's possible. Strategic reasons given for chasing kanga back in the noughties was that it diversified their RE con origin of source, providing flexibility and security of supply. That rationale has only increased recently, especially with LYC moving from the being major (only) ex-China RE source miner, if only for modest NdPr tonnes (~5.5ktpa), to now 12ktpa NdPr and plans to expand towards 18ktpa.
Further, Mt Weld itself has it's own Kanga style ~2.5% TREO primary rock deposit to ~1km deep large awaiting future development. Leaving aside the inferior if yet to be quantified primary met recoveries, LYC has the potential for even higher NdPr supply over the long term as does Kanga. Possibly two the best three NdPr carb deposits globally could be dominant RE suppliers, though the biggest weakness running both at full economic scale is supply concentration risk. Even Australia now has a non-zero chance of say Chinese shipping blockade if geo-politics around Tawain get out of hand.
Both built to max capacity but run under nameplate would provide a single owner supply flexibility, better off-take certainty and even some swing producer oligopoly style supply-balance, pricing-power for the West. Regardless whether M&A is LYC's intention, the biggest synergies between an LYC-LIN tie-up seems to me the soon to be idled Malaysia monazite cracking plant, on account Malaysia doesn;t want Mt Weld's radioactive waste. Basically, that +$500M cracking-MREC plant is worthless without non-radioactive concentrate feed.
To my knowledge there isn't another economic size 'non-radioactive' monazite deposit globally besides Kanga. Logically, if not by M&A then through an off-take (at a premium of course), that idled Malaysian cracking plant is neat solution for the western world to process the first 30,000t REO-con into 6000t NdPr, freeing up further Mt Weld concentrate expansion into other European and Asian downstream destinations. A strong, economic, diversified RE-supply chain for the west.
I also notice LYC challenging Malaysia in court today, seeking judicial review of the Malaysian operating licence conditions prohibiting the import and processing of lanthanide concentrate after 1 January 2024. While I don;t like their chances or Malaysia ever accepting Mt Weld's higher U&Th radioactive concentrate again, accepting Kanga's non-radioactive con into LYC's cracking plant would be a neat way for both parties to save face, and extract economic returns/jobs from a plant investment that otherwise sits there wasted... just saying.
GLTAH
(20min delay)