QATAR’S sovereign wealth fund has taken a $500m stake in Canada’s Ivanhoe Mines, highlighting Gulf states’ push to diversify from oil revenues into critical minerals essential for the energy transition, reported the Financial Times on Wednesday.
The Qatar Investment Authority will hold four percent of Ivanhoe following the investment, which will fund new exploration and mining activities across the company’s African operations.
“We’re very happy,” Ivanhoe executive co-chair Robert Friedland told the newspaper. He called QIA an “ideal strategic partner to look at new horizons” in Angola and Zambia.
The deal reflects Gulf nations’ growing appetite for copper and lithium investments whilst addressing Washington’s concerns about China’s dominance in critical minerals supply chains, said the Financial Times.
QIA’s investment will help diversify Ivanhoe’s shareholder base, where Chinese companies hold over one-third of stakes. China CITIC Bank subsidiary owns 23% whilst mining group Zijin holds 13%.
Both Chinese shareholders possess anti-dilution rights allowing them to maintain their stakes when new shares are issued.
CEO of QIA, Mohammed Saif Al-Sowaidi, said the investment was “strategic” as it assisted Ivanhoe in “finding, developing and sustainably supplying the critical minerals essential to the global energy transition”.
Toronto-listed Ivanhoe sold shares to QIA for C$12 each, representing a five per cent discount to September’s average price before the announcement.
Ivanhoe’s flagship Kamoa-Kakula copper mine in Democratic Republic of Congo suffered setbacks this year following underground tremors causing partial collapse and flooding.
The company also produces platinum in South Africa and zinc in DRC.
Friedland said the Qatar partnership was particularly valuable given the increasingly “balkanised” global economy.
“Given the strategic importance of these minerals, it’s very important to have a consortium that can stand the test of time,” he added.
