The first IPO of 2026 has landed. It’s exploring for gold, but nobody’s paying attention

Spare a thought for Unity Metals (ASX:UM1), the first IPO of 2026 to hit the ASX boards trading – a gold explorer, no less – and after a lacklustre maiden debut on Monday, January 12, on Tuesday, things weren’t much better. (Leaving open the question of whether traders have been keeping their eye on the ASX listings page.)

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It’s fair to say at least that the stock’s in the green – it launched at 20cps on Monday, as at 1.30pm AEDT on Tuesday, it was trading fractionally higher at 22cps on around $250,000 worth of shares trading hands.

To be fair, traders are probably waiting for an initial idea of what kind of grades the company’s got; that wouldn’t necessarily be unusual for those who dabble in the junior-explorer end of the market. Until such time as that, one can probably expect the company to retain a valuation around its $30M cap.

Investors mightn’t be waiting long. Unity has promised to use its IPO funding to start drilling as soon as possible, which builds on the back of some $3.5M exploration CapEx already on the books pre-listing.

There is, perhaps, one troubling jurisdictional issue for Unity – it’s drilling for gold in Cambodia. Fairly unusual as far as the ASX goes (although we’ve got companies in Cuba), and when you add together recent rocket strikes between Cambodia and Thailand, and the fact that Cambodia is often considered quite a corrupt country, that may or may not be part of risk-off calculus.

Of course, wages for drill teams will be cheap at least. And Unity’s aware of the reputation. In a company presso released earlier this month, one slide referenced Cambodia’s gold mining industry being in its “infancy.”

One to watch – but for the first IPO to list this year (and a gold explorer at that!), it might be fair to say the market hasn’t quite woken up from Christmas yet.

UM1 last traded at 22cps.

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