Kennedy Ventures eyes discounted placing to fund potential lithium project

Shares in Kennedy Ventures, the company chaired by controversial former England cricket supremo Giles Clarke, plunged on Wednesday as the company outlined plans for a discounted £2m fundraising to support the expansion of a tantalite project in Namibia that also offers "significant lithium potential".

The AIM-listed company will issue 66.67m shares at a price of 3p, a 37% discount to the closing price on Tuesday and some distance from 12-month highs above 9p, in order to loan funds to 75%-owned subsidiary African Tantalum (Aftan), which plans to upgrade and expand its current processing plant at the Tantalite Valley Mine in southern Namibia.

Aftan will also use the funds to open up the nearby deposit of Lepidolite, which it expects will enable increased throughput to a targeted 15,000 tonnes per month, up from a previous target of 10,500 tonnes, while also upping the output to a targeted 15 tonnes of tantalite concentrate.

Due to the presence of lepidolite, a lithium-rich mica, with the tantalite, Aftan has suggested there is potential for extracting lithium from the mine and anticipates producing lithium concentrate once the expansion programme in complete, which would be a potentially exciting development due to the soaring price of the metal driven by its use in electric car batteries.

"The Lepidolite ore body has resource potential along strike and down dip, studies are ongoing to understand the best way to exploit the lithium potential," explained Kennedy Ventures, which floated in 2006 as heating and ventilation specialist Worthington Nicholls before collapsing less than two years later and making its phoenix-like return as a natural resources investor in 2012.

If completion of the programme and full production is completed as anticipated in the second quarter of 2017, Aftan will "be in a strong position to enter the lithium market", which Kennedy said would make it the first company quoted in London to have lithium-producing investments.

Clarke said the project was "a rare and exciting combination of lithium and tantalite in a country that has enjoyed one of the longest stretches of political stability and peace in Africa".

By 1300 BST on Wednesday, Kennedy shares were down 32% at 3.25p.