Platypus in $10m Lepidico purchase

Shares in Platypus Minerals were down more than 31 per cent today as the company announced a $10 million deal to buy Belmont-based lithium explorer Lepidico.

Platypus also secured underwriting from advisory and venture capitalists GTT Ventures for a $3.5 million rights issue to finance the acquisition, while shareholders in Lepidico will receive 750 million ordinary shares in Platypus.

Lepidico has technology to extract lithium from unconventional rock types at a competitive cost, and a handful of exploration interests.

Platypus chairman Laurie Ziatas said the acquisition and capital raising would position the company as emerging in the sector with a good balance sheet.

“The combination of Platypus’s current assets, Lepidico’s lithium exploration assets and the L-max technology will provide Platypus with a sustainable competitive advantage and point of difference to other lithium juniors and allow us to create maximum value for our combined shareholders,” Mr Ziatas said.

ASX-listed company Lithium Australia is another player working on recovering lithium from mica rocks, with that company announcing yesterday it had won a federal grant through the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation.

Australia is already the world’s largest lithium exporter, thanks in part to the Greenbushes mine operated by Talisman Mining, while Neometals expects to begin commissioning at its Mt Marion lithium mine in the middle of this year.

Shares in Platypus were changing hands at 1.3 cents each at close of trade.