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ed as recently as lithium contacts and acquired tenements
the start of 2020.” next door to Core Lithium Ltd’s Finniss
One of the more project in the Northern Territory. Initial
peculiar entrants samples containing up to 1.61% lithium
to the ASX last and 223 ppm tantalum skyrocketed the
year was Australa- company’s stock to a peak of 92.5c.
sian Gold. Led by Given the company’s newfound suc-
Chinese-Australian cess in lithium, it rebranded as Australa-
businessman Dr sian Metals Ltd but there are no plans to
Qingtao Zeng, the ditch the gold just yet.
company was origi- “I think one of the benefits of being a
nally established to junior is it’s easier for you to switch from
introduce Chinese different commodities,” Zeng told Paydirt.
gold assets to the “We recognised this opportunity is on va-
Australian market cant land, at no cost to us, that’s why we
but that plan was
scuppered due to
the ongoing trade I get confused
dispute between “
the two countries. why people
Zeng then are buying at 20c and
reached out to
some of his con- then dump it at 18c
nections in the or 16c on the second
lithium industry, day; you don’t even
having previously
brokered several give time for the
deals between company to perform.
Australian miners
and Chinese end-
users. He picked acted on it. And we’ve had some early
up the May Queen wins right now.
gold project in “If there was a cost, we cannot do this.
Queensland from We want to create value for shareholders
AIM-listed Iron- with a free ticket.”
Trevor Benson Ridge Resources Zeng, who also floated Canadian lithium
(now Atlantic Lithi- explorer Winsome Resources Ltd later in
um Ltd) and used it the year, said he struggled get a read on
Benson said both Cannon and Evo- to float the company as a dedicated gold the expectations of some IPO investors.
lution Energy were prime examples of explorer. “I get confused why people are buying
boards recognising non-core projects Unfortunately for Zeng, a lukewarm at 20c and then dump it at 18c or 16c on
carried greater value for shareholders if response from the market saw Australa- the second day; you don’t even give time
given priority inside a different vehicle. sian’s shares slip as low as 12.5c despite for the company to perform,” he said.
“When you have contrasting focuses honouring everything in the prospectus “Some IPOs will drop down lower than
in the same company, management will for the first three months. the IPO price simply because there’s so
inevitably choose one over the other at Zeng decided to reach out again to his many choices right now.”
some point,” Benson told Paydirt.
“In the case of Cannon, Rox has a gold
focus and even though Fisher East has
a 78,000t nickel resource, there’s scarce
resources of funding to advance two pro-
jects and one ends up being the poor
cousin. We’ve now given those nickel as-
sets a new lease of life under the Cannon
roof and the team led by Steve Lynn has
delivered shareholder value in spades.
“Similarly with Evolution, Graphex made
the move into gold but now that graphite
has come back and there’s a boom mar-
ket for battery metals, we saw an oppor-
tunity to raise $22 million, pay back the
debt that was hanging over the project
and bring in a new sustainable ESG fund
out of Europe. You’re not going to find too
many graphite IPOs with a DFS complet-
Dr Qingtao Zeng

aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT FeBRUaRY 2022 Page 25