Industry sources suggest the new vehicle aims to raise £180 million to fund an initial purchase of cobalt worth $200 million from Glencore, part of a six-year supply deal. The FTSE 100 mining and trading group is understood to be taking a 10 per cent stake in Cobalt Holdings at launch.
The timing of the flotation has reportedly been influenced by February’s decision by the Democratic Republic of Congo—responsible for about three quarters of the world’s cobalt output—to suspend exports for four months. The move is intended to bolster global prices for the blue metal, used in electric vehicle batteries and smartphones, after they tumbled to $10 per pound, a quarter of cobalt’s peak in 2022.
If the listing proceeds as anticipated, it will be among London’s first flotations of the year. Appetite for new issues has been muted since the flurry of IPOs in 2021. Only last month it was reported that Baker Tilly, the accountancy firm, might pursue a £300 million-plus flotation on AIM this year.
Greenberg, 46, plans to replicate the successful model he established with Yellow Cake, which buys physical uranium. The new enterprise will purchase and hold physical cobalt, aiming to capitalise on any price appreciation in its net asset value over time. Yellow Cake’s own shares have soared by 112 per cent since listing in 2018, and the uranium investor is now valued at £938 million. It holds 21.7 million pounds of uranium under a ten-year supply agreement with Kazatomprom, the world’s largest uranium producer.
A former head of natural resources sales at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Greenberg also runs Sage Enterprises, a commodity-focused consultancy. Citi is understood to be leading the fundraising for Cobalt Holdings, with more details likely to emerge in the coming weeks as preparations for the IPO gather pace.
Jamie Young
Jamie Young is Senior Reporter at Business Matters, covering SME finance, employment law and Westminster policy since 2016. He has reported on every Budget and Autumn Statement since 2018, helped make sense of the 'covid era' and the bounce-back loan scheme from launch through the fraud investigations, and broke the magazine's coverage of the 2024 late-payment reforms. He joined Business Matters straight from completing his BA in Administration from Exeter University and is NCTJ-qualified. Reach him at jyoung@cbmeg.co.uk
