The Canadian development-stage company's offer outbids China-based Contemporary Amperex Technology's proposal to acquire Millennial Lithium for $3.11 per share or $304.2m in cash
Lithium Americas’ Caucharí-Olaroz project is nearly 100km away from the Pastos Grandes project owned by Millennial Lithium. (Credit: Lithium Americas Corp.)
Lithium Americas has proposed to acquire Millennial Lithium, the owner of the Pastos Grandes lithium brine project in Argentina, for a sum of around $400m.
As per the terms of the “unconditional offer”, Lithium Americas has offered to pay C$4.7 ($3.79) per share in the form of its shares plus C$0.001 ($0.00081) in cash for each of the shares in Millennial Lithium.
The consideration proposed by Lithium Americas will result in Millennial Lithium’s shareholders owning nearly 9.9% of the former.
Lithium Americas is a development-stage company based in Canada. Its projects are located in Jujuy, Argentina and Nevada in the US.
The company’s Caucharí-Olaroz lithium project is nearly 100km away from the Pastos Grandes lithium brine project.
According to Lithium Americas, the addition of a complementary and advanced stage resource considerably expands its growth pipeline in Argentina, without distracting its management from ongoing operations.
Lithium Americas president and CEO Jonathan Evans said: “In proximity to Caucharí-Olaroz, Millennial’s 100%-owned Pastos Grandes lithium brine project represents an attractive regional growth opportunity for Lithium Americas.
“As we bring Caucharí-Olaroz into production over the next year and continue to advance our Stage 2 expansion planning, the addition of this highly complementary lithium brine resource further enhances our long-term growth strategy in Argentina and leverages our technical and development expertise.”
In September 2021, Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL) signed an agreement to acquire Millennial Lithium for C$3.85 ($3.11) per share in cash, which equates to C$377m ($304.2m).
Prior to that, in July 2021, Chinese lithium metals producer Ganfeng Lithium had offered a price of C$3.6 ($2.9) per share or around C$353m ($284.8m) in cash to acquire the Canadian company.
However, it was subsequently reported that Ganfeng Lithium had no plans to outbid the offer by CATL.
Millennial Lithium’s board of directors has determined that Lithium Americas’ offer is a superior proposal compared to that of CATL’s bid.