PNN appoints new CEO - previous experience with two billion dollar ASX rare earths companies

Our Investment Power Minerals (ASX: PNN) just appointed Alistair Stephens as its new CEO.

Less than a week after acquiring an advanced rare earth project in Brazil.

Stephens was the previous Managing Director and CEO of Arafura Rare Earths (ASX: ARU) between 2004 and 2009 - during that time Arafura’s market cap went from ~$4M to $400M.

More recently, he was CEO of Lindian Resources (ASX: LIN) - another rare earths company in Africa which is now going into the construction stage with Lindian’s market cap sitting at ~$1.4BN.

So $39M capped PNN is tying together its advanced rare earth project in Brazil - with someone who has been there and done it all before in the rare earths space (twice).

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A quick reminder of the new project PNN is acquiring:

10 days ago PNN announced the acquisition of the Morro do Ferro rare earths project in Minas Gerais, Brazil.

The project has an existing discovery (based on ~156 existing drill holes) with some of the highest grade intercepts of any rare earths project we have seen.

Some of the hits are 60m+ intercepts with rare earth grades above 8% TREO from surface.

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The project sits in the same region as Meteoric Resources and Viridis Mining - two ASX-listed rare earths companies that re-rated massively after acquiring assets in that area.

For example, Meteoric paid ~$20M for its asset in December 2022 and the share price ran up ~1,837% within 12 months.

Viridis had similar success, going from 20c at IPO to a high of $2.64 per share earlier this month.

Here is where PNN’s new asset sits relative to those two companies:

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PNN is currently in the middle of a 30 day Due Diligence period on the asset - after which we want to see PNN drill out the project and confirm the geology plus metwork/processing options.

Check out our deep dive on the new asset here: PNN: New Brazil rare earths project. 156 drill holes. High grade hits. SGQ 2.0?

What’s next for PNN?

🔄Deal completion of recently acquired rare earths project

We want to see PNN complete its due diligence on the project and formally agree to the terms of the option to take ownership of the project.

🔄Drilling at existing Brazilian rare earths project

We want to see PNN doing deeper RC drilling and PNN commenced this program in late January. (source)

We also want to see PNN drill out and define a maiden JORC resource estimate in Brazil to enable comparison to peers, a maiden JORC resource estimate is expected this quarter. (source)

Here are the milestones we are tracking on PNN’s Brazilian rare earths project:

Milestones:

✅ Geophysics/Geochemistry work (geophysics results recently)

✅ Drilling starts (Auger drilling started, RC drilling commenced - today)

🔄 Drilling results

🔲 Maiden JORC resource estimate

🔄Regain control of the Rincon lithium asset

PNN will now need to repay US$1M to the previous Joint Venture partner (Navigate Energy) which it plans to do soon following the recent raise to take 100% ownership of the Rincon asset.

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