Patriot Battery Metals shares dive as short seller claims risks rising
Patriot Battery Metals, the ASX-listed lithium explorer working on a big project in the Canadian province of Quebec, used “curiously timed buyout rumours” to inflate its share price, a short-selling activist investor claims.
Night Market Research, in a report overnight, alleged that lithium reserves were 40 per cent lower than those touted by the company, and suggested Patriot had deliberately delayed a fulsome resource update “seven times and counting”.
The firm’s research estimated the timeline for digging up the lithium-rich spodumene concentrate would take four years longer than the company’s forecast of 2028.
Ex-Pilbara Minerals boss Ken Brinsden is chairman of Patriot Battery Metals. Trevor Collens
Night Market Research, a North American investor that makes money as share prices fall, has pursued several companies in the past four years, including New York-listed medical device manufacturer Zynex and Toronto-listed Cielo Waste Solutions.
“With the highly anticipated resource estimate approaching [at the end of July], we think Patriot is near a speculative peak,” the activist investor wrote in an analysis.
Shares in Patriot, which counts former Pilbara Minerals managing director Ken Brinsden as its chairman, fell almost 6 per cent, or 13¢, to $1.64 on Friday. However, shares have more than doubled since December 31, up 118 per cent.
Night Market Research’s view is in stark contrast to that of analysts at Macquarie, who only this week said the results of metallurgical test work were promising. Macquarie maintains a $2.30-a-share 12-month target. It has also put Patriot among its preferred producers, describing it as having “the greatest upside on exploration over the near-term”.
Patriot owns the Corvette lithium
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