Mick Davis
Battery minerals investor Vision Blue Resources (VBR) has raised more than $650-million from investors seeking exposure to its strategy of supporting companies that will help drive the global transition to clean energy.
Following strong support from specialist mining, private and large institutional investors, the proceeds were above VBR’s $500-million target.
“The interest from new investors seeking exposure to VBR’s strategy of accessing critical minerals has been beyond our expectations,” said chairperson Sir Mick Davis.
VBR’s investment strategy is to secure significant minority stakes in companies with well-defined, advanced and scalable assets, as well as committed management teams. It has invested in companies involved in graphite, vanadium, silicon metal, tin and rare earths. Each of these commodities benefits from rapidly growing demand from end markets, including electric vehicles, grid scale energy storage, wind and solar energy infrastructure and electronic devices.
“Since our first investment in early 2021, we have seen a growing realisation amongst governments, investors, industry and others that the world is facing a major shortfall in the supply of metals and minerals needed to enable the transition to clean, low carbon energy production and usage,” said Davis.
VBR's investment portfolio includes NextSource Materials, which is developing the Molo graphite project in Madagascar; Ferro-Alloy Resources, which is developing the Balasausqandiq vanadium deposit in Kazakhstan; Sinova Global, which aims to become a supplier of ultrahigh-quality quartz from the Horse Creek mine, in Canada; Cornish Metals, which is reopening the historic South Crofty tin mine, in the UK; and Serra Verde, which is developing an integrated rare earths mining and processing operation in central Brazil.