Lithium Universe Ltd (ASX:LU7) will hit the boards this morning after completing an oversubscribed public offer of A$4.5 million and driven by a management and executive group dubbed as the ‘Lithium Dream Team’.
Led by lithium trailblazer Iggy Tan, the team has a solid foundation of hard-rock lithium and rare earth exploration opportunities in Tier-1 mining jurisdictions in Canada and Australia.
Its first priority will be to fast-track the exploration and associated development of the Apollo Lithium Project covering around 240 square kilometres in the Eeyou Istchee Baie-James Municipality (James Bay) of northwest Québec, Canada.
READ: Lithium Universe to start trading on ASX with a focus on nearology play in James Bay, Canada
Successful public offer
The high-quality project portfolio and assembly of a strong team with a technical focus resulted in a highly successful public offer for Lithium Universe that attracted overwhelming demand from a combination of new and existing shareholders.
LU7’s public offer attracted strong support from existing and new strategic investors and the company welcomes many new sophisticated and institutional investors to the share registry.
Non-executive chairman Iggy Tan said: “We are pleased to complete the re-listing process and commence trading on the ASX.
"The team is now focused on deploying the funds raised from the public offer on the highly prospective ground in Québec.
“Eager to scale-up activities”
"The team has spent many months completing due diligence and assessing these projects and is eager to scale up our exploration and development activities on the ground.
"My vision for LU7 is to establish ourselves as a prominent lithium project builder by prioritizing swift and successful exploration and development of lithium projects instead of exploring for the sake of exploration.”
Apollo Project initial focus
Initial focal point, the Apollo Lithium Project, is around 29 kilometres southeast of Patriot Battery Metals Inc (TSX-V:PMET, OTCQX:PMETF, ASX:PMT).’s nearby Corvette Property with maiden resource of 109.2 million tonnes at 1.42% Li2O and also 28 kilometres west of Winsome Resource Ltd’s Adina Property.
At both properties, the spodumene pegmatites are hosted by mafic metavolcanic rocks in close proximity to the pegmatitic granite Vieux Comptoir and hosted by the greenstone belts of the La Grande sub-province.
The Apollo project similarly exhibits mafic metavolcanic rocks and pegmatitic granite Vieux Comptoir.
The company’s team in Canada.
Impressive track record
LU7’s executive and management team has a successful track record of developing hard rock lithium projects across the mining lifecycle.
It is led by Iggy Tan, who was one of the first Australian mining executives to identify the significant opportunity within the emerging lithium-ion battery sector when he spearheaded Galaxy Resources Ltd (ASX:GXY).
Tan is looking to replicate the success with Galaxy, having built that company’s Mt Cattlin Spodumene Project (137,000 tonnes per annum of spodumene product) and the downstream Jiangsu Lithium Carbonate project (capacity of 17,000 tonnes per annum).
When Tan started at Galaxy the company’s market capitalisation was less than A$10 million and after he left, was valued at A$2.5 billion when the company merged with Orocobre Limited in August 2021.
Tan's previous experience working within the lithium industry dates back to the early 1990s when he briefly managed the Greenbushes Lithium Mine and commissioned the first lithium carbonate plant for Gwalia Consolidated.