Tim Treadgold has been writing about the mining and oil industries for more than 40 years.
Tim Roberts, one of the heirs to a multi-billion dollar fortune left by his builder father, the late John Roberts, has enjoyed his first significant win in the Australian mining industry thanks largely to the U.S.-based specialty chemical maker, Albemarle Corporation.
Through a private company, Kingfisher Capital, Roberts last month paid $21 million at an average price of $10.60 for slightly more than two million shares in Mineral Securities, a mining and engineering services company of which he was appointed a director two years ago.
Until making that investment Roberts owned just 6997 shares in Mineral Resources which mines iron ore and lithium as well as having a division which builds mineral processing plants.
Initially, the value of Roberts’ additional investment in Mineral Resources slipped slightly but when the Australian stock exchange closed yesterday Roberts was up $2 million on an investment made approximately two weeks ago.
What drove the Mineral Resources share price up by 10% from $10.25 to $11.33 in a day was news that the sale of a half-share in a lithium project to Albemarle had moved beyond negotiation to a binding sales agreement.
For the rest of this column: https://www.forbes.com/sites/timtreadgold/2018/12/17/building-fortune-heir-tim-roberts-picks-a-lithium-winner/#333820653b06