Wildcat Resources is the latest Western Australia junior miner to be the target of a share raid by a battery minerals-hungry billionaire, with Chris Ellison believed to be amassing a stake in the lithium explorer that takes his stake to 18 per cent.
More than 186.66 million Wildcat shares crossed in the trade, at 85c, according to trading data sourced from Bloomberg.
It is suspected that Chris Ellison’s Mineral Resources is targeting the company’s emerging Tabba Tabba lithium discovery in Western Australia.
While no market disclosures have yet been made, Wildcat acquired Tabba Tabba from Global Advance Metals, which is majority owned by mining investor Resource Capital Funds, in exchange for 186.66 million shares – the exact amount registered in Tuesday’s block trade.
The trade was revealed online by DataRoom on Tuesday.
RCF founder James McClement is also the non-executive chairman of MinRes, which got its Pilbara lithium foothold by buying the Wodgina lithium deposit from Global Advanced Metals.
Mr McClemments is understood that have taken steps to wall himself off from discussions between MinRes, Wildcat and RCF over the acquisition of the stake in the lithium explorer.
The share buy-up extends the recent run of major buying in junior Western Australia lithium stocks, amid a battle for control of Azure Minerals between Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting and global lithium major SQM, and after Hancock spoiled Albemarle’s takeover bid for Liontown Resources this month.
MinRes is believed to have been buying earlier this month, as it builds up a broad holding in lithium juniors across the state.
Wildcat shares closed at 70.5c, down 18 per cent.
Mr Ellison is also speculated to be a shareholder in Azure Minerals under 5 per cent, and some had suspected he may have been looking to amass more shares in the takeover target of which Mrs Rinehart recently raided, with the billionaire gaining about 18 per cent.
Wildcat’s market value has soared on the back of promising drilling results of its Tabba Tabba lithium project near Port Hedland in Western Australia.
Shares were about 4c at the start of this year and now its value is about $895m.
Mr Ellison has been muscling deeper into the lithium space, this year acquiring a stake in the $300m Delta Lithium of almost 12 per cent.
He has a holding in Patriot Battery Metals and owns about 10 per cent of Global Lithium with a $320m value.
Mr Ellison’s company, Mineral Resources, has a market value of almost $13bn and generates income from its two iron ore hubs – Utah Point in Port Hedland and Yilgarn in Esperance, Western Australia.
Its mines are operated at Iron Valley, south of Port Hedland, and Koolyanobbing and Kumina, both in Western Australia.
As well as iron ore mining and bulk ore transportation in the Pilbara, it also operates two hard rock lithium mines in Western Australia, Mount Marion in the Goldfields and Wodgina in the Pilbara.
The thinking is that Mr Ellison is looking to capitalise on Tabba Tabba’s proximity to its own Wodgine mine and Mineral Resources’ access to export infrastructure at Port Hedland, a port that has been traditionally hard for junior miners to break into over the years.
MinRes is also building its own port near Onslow to serve as a new export terminal for Pilbara iron ore, and potentially lithium that is unable to find a path to market in other ways.