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(Kitco News) - Critical minerals are absorbing a limited amount of capital available in the resource sector, noted David D’Onofrio, CFO of PowerOne Capital Markets.
On June 22, 2023, D’Onofrio spoke to Kitco at the 15th Lithium Supply and Battery Raw Materials 2023 in Henderson, Nevada.
PowerOne Capital Markets is a diversified merchant bank focused on providing early-stage capital and advisory services to emerging growth companies globally. Since its inception in 2003, the company claims to have been involved in over 400 transactions, providing financing and advisory services to companies involving over $3 billion dollars. Highlights include taking Lithium Americas public, which is advancing towards production in Nevada and has a market cap over $3 billion.
PowerOne has been in the EV space for a while.
"We were very early, maybe a little too early," said D'Onofrio noting that he took the first lithium company public in 2009, preceding the date that Tesla went public. "I recall the days of going around marketing...within the first 15 minutes of your presentations, you were asked:
'what's lithium?', 'what's it used for?' It was a tiny market, and it still is a relatively small market."
D'Onofrio said that the critical minerals market is seeing more love than the precious metal market.
"We're in a risk-off period," said D'Onfrio. "Notwithstanding the fact that commodity prices are near all-time highs...exploration companies are fundamentally risky assets. [Precious metals] are not a hot sector like lithium or uranium right now. There just isn't much capital available, which is unfortunate since there are very important projects that need to be advanced."
Coverage of 15th Lithium Supply and Battery Raw Materials 2023 sponsored by Lindian Resources (ASX:LIN).
