He turned a penny stock to gold. Now Beament’s leaping into lithium
Former Northern Star Resources boss Bill Beament is set to make the leap into lithium with the support of Mineral Resources billionaire Chris Ellison, two years after declaring that “gold is not green”.
Mr Beament’s Develop Global has struck a deal to acquire Essential Metals and its Pioneer Dome lithium project near Kalgoorlie via an all-scrip bid that values Essential at about $152.6 million.
Develop Global boss Bill Beament. Trevor Collens
Mr Ellison’s MinRes owns 19.55 per cent of Essential and used that stake to block an IGO Limited and Tianqi takeover bid for Essential pitched at 50¢ a share in April.
MinRes, which has a near 13 per cent stake in Develop, is backing the Beament entity and its scrip bid, which implies a 56¢ per share valuation for Essential.
The 1-for-6.18 scrip deal announced on Monday has the backing of the Essential board and represents a 34.9 per cent premium on the lithium hopeful’s closing price on Friday. The Essential share price jumped 18 per cent to 49¢ on Monday.
Develop has also unveiled a $50 million capital raising. Mr Beament is the major shareholder with 19.4 per cent, along with MinRes, and both are committed to taking up their entitlements.
IGO and its Chinese lithium partner Tianqi, which owns 51 per cent of the world-leading Greenbushes mine in WA, had been willing to spend $136 million for the Pioneer Dome project before being thwarted by Mr Ellison.
Pioneer Dome sits about 75 kilometres north of the Mt Marion lithium mine MinRes owns and operates in partnership with China’s Ganfeng, and MinRes has looked at sites in Kalgoorlie for a lithium hydroxide plant.
Mr Beament made his fortune taking Northern Star from a penny stock to a mid-tier gold miner, before bowing out and
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