Street Talk can reveal a mystery suitor lobbed a bid in April....

Street Talk can reveal a mystery suitor lobbed a bid in April. Fingers were pointing to Credit Suisse as the likely adviser, whose equity capital markets team has been the top broker buying up Liontown shares for the past month.

Credit Suisse’s resources bankers have previously advised Rio Tinto on its acquisition of copper-gold miner Turquoise Hill alongside RBC Capital Markets and Rothschild. However, sources said Rio Tinto – which has been seen as a prime contender for Liontown – hasn’t thrown its hat in the ring. (For what it’s worth, neither has Chris Ellison’s Mineral Resources).

Wesfarmers, Chilean conglomerate SQM, a joint venture between IGO and Tianqi, South32 and Fortescue Metals are viewed as logical bidders.

Whoever it is, they have ring-fenced their buying to $2.75 a share, implying the bid would have been around that mark. The Liontown board has already turned down three offers from Albemarle – at $2.20, $2.35 and $2.50 per share – despite premiums of up to 67 per cent on offer.

Albermarle execs still want friendly deal

The race for Liontown is expected to be raised with Albemarle executives in coming days when the North Carolina-based company hands down its quarterly results on May 3. The lithium giant hasn’t made a move since March, but is understood to want a friendly deal. It has been careful to not buy shares above its bid levels, sources said.

The new arrival would face the same problems as Albemarle: Liontown chair Tim Goyder’s high expectations of what the business is worth, and tightly held register of loyalists that make a hostile bid impractical.

Lastly, there’s the question of how to sell the bid to shareholders. With the shares trading at $2.71 on Monday, a bid at $2.75 still does not represent much of a premium.