LONDON, June 12 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Carmakers are in a race to lock in battery metals like lithium.
For shareholders, the risk is that they tie up capital in expensive supply deals, or mines in far-flung locations with poor governance.
Stellantis’s (STLAM.MI) investment in a London-based special purpose acquisition company deal looks like a neat fix to those challenges.
In a complex deal, halfway between an IPO and a SPAC takeover, it will buy the Serrote and Santa Rita mines in east Brazil for $1.1 billion.
Besides the original SPAC investors, the bulk of that will likely come from a public offering, and new anchor investors like Stellantis.
Persons:
Nat Rothschild’s Vallar, Artem Volynets, Neil Unmack, Xavier Niel, George Hay, Oliver Taslic
Organizations:
Reuters, Twitter, Brookfield, Thomson
Locations:
London, Santa, Brazil, Teck, China