Australia’s Firefinch Ltd shares rose after short-seller J Capital Research on Thursday published a report saying the lithium miner should be valued roughly 90% above its current market cap.
Shares of Firefinch, one of the world’s top producers of lithium chemicals used in electric vehicle batteries, rose as much as 5% following the report.
“We believe Firefinch should be trading at a valuation of between A$1.68 billion ($1.3 billion) and A$2.28 billion” the short-seller said in the report. The midpoint of the range is 90% above the Firefinch’s current market cap of A$1.04 billion, according Refinitv data.
Late last year, J Capital had to settle a lawsuit with another lithium miner, Vulcan Energy, after the company had rejected the contents of a report, branding them “misleading”. J Capital also had to issued an open letter of apology to Vulcan.
“The political risk in Mali has scared investors away from investigating the value of Firefinch,” J Capital said in Thursday’s report.
“We believe Firefinch’s under-appreciated lithium asset, Goulamina, alongside its operational gold mine, Morila, are significantly undervalued based on the current market capitalization,” it added.
Early this year, Firefinch gave the go-ahead for their Goulamina Lithium Project in Mali, after raising the estimated capital cost for the first phase.
($1 = 1.3337 Australian dollars)
(By Indranil Sarkar; Editing by Stephen Coates)
Comments