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Anson Resources (ASX:ASN) has managed to resolutely irritate almost all HotCopper users commenting on the announcement threads on Wednesday pertaining to Anson’s news that it has halted trades ahead of a capital raise.
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The company last did this halfway through August, which led multiple users to question – perhaps fairly – why Anson didn’t just raise the money it needed at the time (mid-August) if it likely foresaw the need for another cap raise towards the end of the year.
To be fair, August was likely a far better time to raise capital broadly, looking at what the ASX has done through November thus far.
(That August placement raised a perhaps humble $5 million.)
Anson’s latest quarterly (September) reflected the company had $3.5M in cash after spending $3.6M in the three months; also noted was $30M in financing.
Those facilities may or may not be available for drawdown, but the $3.6M spend and $5M placement do legitimise somewhat complaints from HotCopper users that the company probably should have aimed for a higher target during the August placement. It’s well known that retail investors, in particular, aren’t necessarily fans of capital raising exercises unless a company’s on the brink of FID.
A number of large announcements have come from the company this year. It executed a ‘definitive’ lithium offtake agreement with LG Energy (Anson to supply), and ASN has also been in talks with South Korean chemical giant POSCO, which in turn wants to establish its own lithium downstream processing capacity.
Worth noting – and this may or may not be related to POSCO’s intentions when it comes to securing Australian lithium asset stakes – POSCO last week inked a deal with MinRes valued at north of A$1B, which gives POSCO a 30% stake (broken up across two lithium projects 50% owned by MinRes at 15% each for POSCO) in lithium assets that may or may not have overridden its need to take an interest in Anson. Time will tell.
ASN last traded at 10cps.
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