Albemarle seeks to sell Liontown stake after failed bid

US-based Albemarle has offered the roughly 96 million shares it holds in Liontown for around A$121mil. — Reuters

SYDNEY: Albemarle is trying to sell its stake in Australia’s Liontown Resources, a term sheet shows, three months after Australia’s richest person blocked its A$6.6bil (US$4.3bil) bid for the lithium developer.

US-based Albemarle, the world’s largest lithium producer, has offered the roughly 96 million shares it holds in Liontown for around A$121mil in a block trade run by JPMorgan, the term sheet showed.

The shares represent some 4% of Liontown’s shares.

Albemarle and Liontown did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The offer price of A$1.26 to A$1.32 per share is a discount of 7.4% to 2.9% to Liontown’s last traded price of A$1.36 yesterday.

Shares had closed as high as A$3 in the days before Albemarle withdrew its offer in October.

In abandoning the bid, Albermarle cited “growing complexities” after Hancock Prospecting, an iron ore miner controlled by Australia’s richest person, Gina Rinehart, raised its stake in Liontown sufficiently to block the bid.

Hancock Prospecting ultimately acquired a 19.9% stake in Liontown, making it the company’s largest shareholder.

Days after the deal fell through, Liontown announced a A$1.13bil financing package to fund its Kathleen Valley project in Western Australia, due to start producing lithium in the middle of this year. — Reuters