ASIC confirms Kali Metals’ initial public offering and aftermath will feature in Mineral Resources probe

The corporate cop has confirmed Kali Metals’ extraordinary emergence on the stock market last year will be in the thick of its investigation into Mineral Resources. In a rare move, a spokesman for the Australian Securities and Investments Commission publicly acknowledged a Kali-related inquiry would form part of its MinRes probe. “ASIC has previously announced an ongoing investigation into MinRes, and we are considering the Kali Metals initial public offering as part of our broader work on this matter,” he told The West Australian. It marks the first time ASIC has revealed a focus area of its investigation into corporate governance issues at MinRes — an investigation which was first announced in October. MinRes and Kali both declined to comment. Two weeks ago, a Kali spokesman said the company was “not aware of any communication from ASIC on this, or any other matter”. The regulatory scrutiny into MinRes’ involvement in the share market float of the West Perth-based lithium explorer was first reported by The West Australian two weeks ago. It is understood reporting by The West since January 1 last year stimulated interest in the Kali float as a focus of the corporate regulator’s MinRes investigation that began later in the year. Kali debuted on the ASX in January 8 last year. The vaunted lithium junior had an initial public offering price of 25¢ and within a week of its listing debut reached a peak of 89¢ as MinRes piled in to acquire a 14 per cent stake. A number of major shareholders sold big portions of their holdings in Kali while MinRes was buying up. Kali shares last traded hands at 7.5¢. The stake MinRes acquired in a frenzy for $9.4 million is now worth $1.5m. Kali was spun-out from Kalamazoo Resources and Karora Resources, and its heavily-oversubscribed $15m IPO in November 2023 eclipsed expectations. “We opened and closed (the offer) in less than 20 minutes,” Kali’s then-managing director Graeme Sloan told The West in December 2023. “It was hugely successful, we were structured to raise between $12m and up to $15m . . . we probably could’ve ended up raising at least two or three times that.”