Cobalt Holdings drops London IPO plans

Metals investor Cobalt Holdings has dropped plans for an initial public offering on the London Stock Exchange, dashing investor hopes of what would’ve been the biggest mining IPO since 2022.

The company previously aimed to raise as much as $230 million through the offering and use most of the funds to buy 6,000 tonnes of physical cobalt from Glencore (LON: GLEN) at a discount.

The IPO launch represents Cobalt Holding’s strategic play to capitalize on a struggling market that has been in three consecutive years over oversupply despite healthy demand, which drove the metal’s price down by 75% over the past three years.

The company, headed by mining entrepreneur Jake Greenberg, is betting the cobalt market to turn around, and believes the purchase of physical cobalt offers investors direct exposure to the battery metal without the risks associated with mining operations.

According to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, the volume from the Glencore purchase would represent about a third of the projected global cobalt surplus in 2025, and one-sixth of the previous year’s.

“We believe now is the right time to build a strategic stockpile of cobalt,” Greenberg said in a filing ahead of the planned IPO.

As part of the cobalt purchase arrangement, Glencore had agreed to buy about 10% of the shares to be offered in the IPO. Investment firm Anchorage Capital was also expected to acquire a 9.5% stake, committing to supply up to 1,500 tonnes of cobalt in 2031.

No reason cited

On Wednesday, Cobalt Holdings did not give reasons for the U-turn after pricing its shares at $2.56 each last week. However, sources cited by Reuters have indicated that the process was halted due to a lack of investor demand.

The IPO would have been the largest on the London exchange since Ithaca Energy’s (LON: ITH) $300 million raise in late 2022. Glencore holds the record for the largest IPO on the London Stock Exchange. The Swiss miner and commodities trader debuted in May 2011 at a valuation of more than £36 billion (around $60 billion at the time) and raised some $10 billion in total through a dual listing in Hong Kong.

Other notable IPOs in London include Kazatomprom’s (LON: KAP), the world’s largest uranium producer, which debuted in November 2018. Around the same time, another uranium producer, Yellow Cake (LON: YCA) — also founded by Greenberg — was listed in London.