Cobalt firm taps in to electric car boom with £174m London stock market float

Cobalt trading company said it will collect 174 million pounds in the rare stock market in London, in a bet on demand for car batteries that challenge the nerves of investors about growth in electric cars.

Cobalt Holdings said it would raise 230 million dollars (174 million pounds) in order to purchase supplies of metal, a decisive element in electric car batteries, from FTSE 100 MINING Company Glencore. Miners will invest $ 24 million and get a share of about 10 %, according to a statement on the London Stock Exchange on Monday.

The demand for electric cars is still growing all over the world, but this growth was slower than previously expected, which led to a series of international car makers to slow their transition away from gasoline and diesel. This has made it more difficult for companies to raise funds for projects related to electric cars, and causes cobalt prices.

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However, Cobalt Holdings argued that increasing the width in the metal would be short -term, giving him an opportunity to buy cheaply.

The company was founded by Jake Greenberg, who was one of the founders of the yellow cake, and it is a similar vehicle listed in London to buy and carry uranium for nuclear fuel. Yellow Cake’s evaluation, at a price of about one billion pounds, is more than twice that was worth in July 2018, when the shares were exposed.

Most electric car batteries depend on lithium ions to store energy, but Nickel, manganese and cobalt (NMC) plays an important role in installing NMC batteries during recharge. Cobalt is the most expensive of these minerals, which means that companies are trying to find cheaper alternatives. Many of the cheapest car makers have chosen the Lithium Iron Carboxes (LFP) made of cheaper elements, however NMC is still the chemistry for long -term cars.

“We now believe that the time to build a strategic stock of cobalt,” Greenberg said. “The long -term price of cobalt was much higher than the prevailing instant price.

“The Democratic Republic of the Congo began to impose restrictions on export, which reduces the supply of minerals, while the demand for cobalt is more than twice between 2015 and 2024, and it is expected to rise by more than 54 % between 2024 and 2031, primarily on the back of the growth of the IV battery.”

Despite the slower investments of car makers in electric cars, the demand for batteries is expected to increase with sales of gasoline and diesel cars, especially in the United Kingdom and the European Union. The largest battery manufacturer in the world, Catl, said on Monday that it would raise $ 4 billion in a secondary offer in Hong Kong, while it will be the largest float for 2025 so far.

The Cobalt Holdings menu will be the largest in London, in drought. During the year 2024, 88 companies were deleted from the London Stock Exchange or transferred their basic list from its main market. Only 18 listed.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo produces about three quarters of the global cobalt supplies, although its record is marred by continuous allegations of children’s work and craft mining in dangerous conditions, according to the reports of the Human Rights Group of Amnesty International and others.