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92 Energy managing director Siobhan Often when
Lancaster and chairman Richard Pearce you’re going
declared the company’s shares open for through these times of
trade back in April. The uranium explorer “We were also very confident this would
was one of 106 new resources listings increased IPO activity, be a very unique story for the market in
in 2021 you’re thinking maybe Australia given that at the time there was
no other uranium company with assets
it’ll last a few months...
in the Athabasca Basin. We thought that
but we saw this run provided us with a competitive advantage
of IPOs continue right for listing, and it did.”
92E has hardly put a foot wrong since
number and then as they were going through the year. arriving on the ASX with its shares open-
through the process, saw the demand ing at a 75% premium to the standard 20c
was higher than they expected and ended issue price for a new listing. The com-
up raising more.” and take 92E through the IPO process, pany’s stock peaked as high as $1.15 in
Like Andrawes, Trevor Benson has ex- yellowcake prices were still very stagnant September on the back of the Gemini dis-
perienced many IPO cycles over his four and floating a uranium explorer focused covery, paving the way for a further $7.15
decades in the mining and finance indus- on Canada’s Athabasca Basin seemed a million to be raised via a placement which
tries. Last year he was instrumental in the bold move. was also heavily oversubscribed.
floats of nickel explorer Cannon Resourc- 92E finished the year as the fourth- In the absence of another new uranium
es Ltd and graphite developer Evolution best performing IPO, having made a ma- company to benchmark against, Lancas-
Energy Minerals Ltd. jor discovery from the fourth drill hole of ter said the success of other exploration
Benson, who now serves as chairman its maiden exploration campaign at the IPOs during the latter stages of 2020 had
of both companies, cannot recall a past Gemini project, with the uranium spot been a major factor in the decision to list
IPO market supported by such high com- price also climbing from $US30/lb to 92E.
modity prices across the board, head- $US45/lb over the course of 2021. Lan- “When you’re listing an exploration
lined by gold and iron ore during the first caster has since been promoted to the company, you want to know that the mar-
half of the year and rounded off by a large managing director’s chair. ket is strong and is going to be able to
appetite for nickel, copper and lithium on A key member of Extract Resources support you to do what you need to do,”
the back of their direct association with prior to its $2.2 billion takeover by China Lancaster said.
the burgeoning battery minerals space. General Nuclear Power Group, Lancas- “We had the support at the seed level
While the few iron ore companies to ter said there was never any trepidation and we knew we would have the sup-
list last year suffered an average drop in about bringing to market a story which port at the IPO level, but you also want to
share price of 22.8%, those with a focus Australian investors had not been ex- make sure you have the support post the
on battery minerals finished 2021 at the posed to for some time. IPO, and that really only happens when
top of the list with Kuniko Ltd (up 463%), “We’re all ex-uranium people from the the market is strong. The exploration
Lithium Energy Ltd (up 352%) and Global last round and so we were confident that market has been very strong over the last
Lithium Ltd (up 350%) crowned the best the market fundamentals were right and couple of years, it’s been building up to
market performers post IPO. that the Australian market knows urani- where it is now and we felt we could really
“Investors are looking for leverage to um,” she told Paydirt. leverage off that.”
these very strong commodity prices and
on top of that you have this enormous ap-
petite for battery metals which has only
grown since COP26,” Benson said.
“This battery metals market is very real,
whereas before I don’t think people really
believed in this incredibly high demand
which is coming for commodities like
graphite and nickel.”
Gold (41) was the dominant commod-
ity of choice among new listings in 2021,
followed by copper (19), nickel (11) and
lithium (eight). As expected, 83 of the
106 new IPOs have their primary project
based in Australia, including 54 in West-
ern Australia.
One company to buck both the com-
modity and jurisdiction trend was Can-
ada-focused 92 Energy Ltd (92E) which
became the first uranium explorer to list
on the ASX in a decade when it hit the
boards in April following an oversub-
scribed $7 million IPO.
When Siobhan Lancaster was ap-
proached to join the company as its inau-
gural chief executive in December 2020
Sherif Andrawes

aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT FeBRUaRY 2022 Page 23