Column: Trump 2.0 won’t reverse Biden’s critical minerals push
Donald Trump has described the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) as a "green scam" and vowed to repeal it after he returns to the White House in January.
Image: Graeme Berglund / CEO.CA
This morning, one of the best performing and fastest growing copper companies in the world, First Quantum Minerals (FM:TSX), closed its acquisition of Ross Beaty’s Lumina Copper and the behemoth Taca Taca copper project. That company was the sixth and final iteration of the Lumina Group companies to be developed and sold under the guidance of Mr. Beaty.
In the early part of the last decade, Beaty and his team bought a handful of large copper assets for next to nothing when the price of the commodity was below $1.00/pound. In 2003, the first Lumina company was born and was taken public at $1 per share. Since then the group has sold five companies under the Lumina umbrella including Northern Peru Copper, which was sold to the Chinese for $463 million. Lumina Copper was acquired for $470 million.
In total, Lumina Group transactions have returned over $1.4 billion to shareholders with only $170 million invested.
Commenting on the sale, Ross Beaty, Lumina’s founder and largest shareholder, said: “While I am sad that this is the last of our six Lumina group companies to be sold, thus ending a tremendous story of wealth creation, I am really pleased that First Quantum has successfully acquired our Taca Taca deposit through this transaction. First Quantum is a fine company with an amazing management team, and I look forward to them developing Taca Taca for the benefit of Argentina and all First Quantum shareholders — including those Lumina Copper shareholders who retain First Quantum shares, as I am doing.”
Mr. Beaty remains a large investor in a number of juniors including Odin Mining and Exploration (ODN:TSXV), which is hunting for riches in the ‘out of favor country’ of Ecuador.
