New IPO Winsome (expected code: WR1) is a spinout from gold stock MetalsTech (ASX:MTC).

Canaccord is leading the IPO, and aims to raise A$12-18 million for the main round, including a A$3 million cornerstone from Canadian battery materials fund Lithium Royalty Corp (LRC), as well as a proposed $2 million priority offer for MTC shareholders.

Managing director (and lithium veteran) Chris Evans reckons Winsome is in the right time and place to ride the next lithium wave with the company’s three projects – Cancet, Adina and Sirmac-Clappier – in the prime jurisdiction of Quebec.

 

How does Winsome compare to the other lithium companies (Altura, Mali Lithium) you’ve been involved with?

“There are many things that excite me about it, the first thing is that it’s lithium again,” Evans says.

“Like most commodities, it’s had its cycles over the last few years and now we’re really seeing that second uplift in the lithium market – almost lithium 2.0.”

“I think this one is going to be a lot more sustained than the previous lithium boom we had in 2016-2017 because there’s much more of an electric vehicle market behind it now, much more adoption, and there’s so many more gigafactories around the world either being built, or being planned, or that are in production now than there were in 2016.”

“I think lithium is the right commodity [to be in].”

“Canada for me is a great jurisdiction in which to work. It’s renowned for its mining, and is very supportive of establishing a downstream battery industry, with lithium on the critical minerals list for both Canada and North America.”

“And in Quebec in particular, 99.8% of all power comes from hydro which is renewable so that gives us a great opportunity to develop a really low impact lithium operation.”

 

The IPO is aiming to raise $12-18 million. What will you use the funds for?

“Primarily exploration. We’ve got three projects in Quebec, two of which are being drilled and one is early-stage exploration, so the majority of that money will be spent on exploration and drilling over the next two years,” Evans says.

“Two of our primary goals are to establish a maiden JORC resource on our Cancet Project and then do scoping and feasibility studies to advance it towards production.”

What makes Cancet stand out?

“It’s the location in Quebec that makes it an amazing project, but also the drilling and the metallurgical test work we’ve had done at Cancet — it shows it’s a very coarse grain spodumene which means that its amenable to dense media separation,” Evans says.

“DMS is a simple gravity operation and the key to it, is that its low-impact on the environment, its low capital cost and it is very quick to get into production.”

 

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