He has already said an IPO is on the cards if a sale is not agreed. Sounds like a sales tactic to me. Looking at what other tier 1s like RioTinto are doing i would think there wont be a shortage of bidders so an IPO is a long shot and a worst case scenario. $1.5b is 30x your initial investment. I have had worse investments. Also, they said in an email that they raised close to double what they asked for suggesting there were actually many holders willing to buy shares.