Lake Resources NL (LKE.AX) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome, everyone. The time being 5 minutes past 9. I'd like to welcome you to the Lake Resources Extraordinary General Meeting. My name is Stuart Crow. I'm the Chairman and will serve as the Chairman of the meeting. I'd also like to introduce to you the other directors attending. Participating online is managing Director, David Dickson, while Non-Executive Director Robert Trzebski is attending here in person. I'd also like introduce our Senior Finance Manager and Company Secretary, Nkechi Ezimah, who is managing today's meeting. Lake is pleased to provide shareholders with the opportunity to participate in today's EGM either online through Automic or in the room here in Brisbane. Shareholders who wish to vote virtually during the meeting need to log in to Automic's online meeting platform. Shareholders can ask questions during the meeting either in person or virtually via the online platform. I intend moving the formal meeting to the business contained in the Notice of Meeting. Under ASX Listing Rules, all resolutions will be determined by a poll. Also present is our share register, Automic, represented by Dean Ryan. I'm advise that a quorum of members is present and call the meeting to order. Valid proxies have been tabulated for each resolution and are available for inspection if required. I intend to vote undirected proxies appointing the Chairman in favor of each resolution being considered at this meeting subject to compliance of the Corporations Act. In accordance with the company's constitution, the Notice of Extraordinary General Meeting was sent to shareholders on 5th of September and will be taken as read. No notice of any other business has been received. And I should advise that we have not received any written questions prior to the meeting. Shareholders will be given an opportunity to ask questions at the end of this meeting and following relevant item of business. To submit your vote online, you will need to log into Automic's online voting platform on your smartphone, tablet or computer. Instructions on this were provided within the Notice of Meeting. I'll now move to the items of business and declare voting on all resolutions open. Resolution 1, ratification of our prior issued placement shares issued under ASX Listing Rule 7.1 and ASX Listing Rule 7.1A - Tranche 1. I propose that for the purpose of ASX Listing Rule 7.4 and for all other purposes, shareholders ratify the allotment and prior issue of new shares using the company's available placement capacity subject to ASX Listing Rule 7.1 and 7.1A issued on 26th of August 2025 as part of Tranche 1 issue on the terms of conditions set out in the explanatory memorandum accompanying the Notice of Meeting. Are there any questions in respect of this resolution? No? Proxies received in respect of this resolution are 169,510,233. Resolution 2, approve the issue of placement options under ASX Listing Rule 7.1 - Tranche 1. I propose that for purposes of ASX Listing Rule 7.1 and for all other purposes, and subject to the completion of the placement, shareholders approve the issue of up to 132,587,526 placement options to participants in the Tranche 1 issue on the terms and conditions set out in explanatory memorandum accompanying the Notice of Meeting. Are there any questions in respect of this resolution? Proxies received in respect of this resolution are 169,360,233. Resolution 3, approve issued placement shares and placement options under ASX Listing Rule 7.1 - Tranche 2. I propose that for purposes of ASX Listing Rule 7.1 and for all other purposes, the shareholders approve the issue of up to 68,154,947 placement shares and up to 34,078,474 placement options to participants in the Tranche 2 issue on the terms and conditions set out in the explanatory memorandum accompanying the Notice of Meeting. Are there any questions in respect of this resolution? Proxy votes received in respect of this resolution are 169,375,454. Resolution 4, approve to issue broker options under ASX Listing Rule 7.1. I propose that for the purpose of ASX Listing Rule 7.1 and for all other purposes, the shareholders approve the issue of up to 30 million broker options to Evolution Capital or its nominee on the terms and conditions set out in the explanatory memorandum accompanying the Notice of Meeting. Are there any questions in respect of this resolution? Proxy votes received in respect of this resolution are 169,462,633. Resolution 5, I will hand over to Robert Trzebski as this resolution involves myself.

I propose that for purposes of ASX Listing Rule 10.11, section 195(4) and 208 of the Corporations Act, and for all other purposes, the shareholders approve the issue of 25 million director options to Stuart Crow or his nominee on the terms set out in the explanatory memorandum accompanying the Notice of Meeting. Are there any questions? There's none being the case. Proxies we've also received in respect to this resolution are 166,945,605. I would like to invite Mr. Crow to resume the chairing of this meeting. [indiscernible]

Thanks, Robert. Approve to issue directors' options to Director Robert Trzebski. I propose that for purposes of ASX Listing Rule 10.11, sections 195(4) and 208 of the Corporations Act, and for all other purposes, the shareholders approve the issue of 15 million director options to Robert Trzebski or his nominee on the terms set out in the explanatory memorandum accompanying the Notice of Meeting. Are there any questions in respect of this resolution? Proxy votes received in respect of this resolution are 166,944,605 shares. Move on to resolution 7, approval to issue directors' options to Director David Dickson. I propose that for purposes of ASX Listing Rule 10.11, sections 195(4) and 208 of the Corporations Act, for all other purposes, the shareholders approve the issue of 35 million director options to David Dickson or his nominee on the terms set out in the explanatory memorandum accompanying the Notice of Meeting. Are there any questions in respect of this resolution? Proxy votes received in respect of this resolution are 166,712,105 shares. I'd like to ask shareholders to raise now any business as may be lawfully put forward in accordance with the company's constitution.

Have some questions. Question here. Why didn't we offer our 31,000 retail shareholders a chance to participate in the latest capital raising while the share purchase plan on the same terms of sophisticated [ and current ] investors. The reason we did that, we have offered shareholders access to these placements in the past. And we also had a share purchase plan attached to the previous issue and the take-up of that was fairly limited. Also, the other reason, whilst it's in a state of the market at the time when we went to market, there was a very short and pretty aggressive spike in the price of lithium. And lithium equities globally were moving fairly quickly, and the time taken to prepare documents that would allow retail to participate in a fund raise, it would have extended the period by some weeks. And as you've seen, that spike in the price of lithium was fairly short with -- based around the closure of a couple of mines in China, and the price has subsequently fallen down to a level where it's been sitting probably somewhere around the last 3 to 6 months. So there was an opportunity we were presented with to raise some money very quickly by Evolution. They came to us and offered some money and was determined by the Board that, that had been the best action for us to take. But in light of that, we also have offered and intend to offer a bonus option to existing shareholders that will take place after the completion of ratification of this placement. So we appreciate our shareholders being shareholders in this company, and we're looking at ways to reward them. And it was just that we didn't think it was possible to do that at the time by the very nature of the movement in the market and the way that placement took place. It happened quite quickly. And I think everyone will agree, it was a pretty good result, looking back even 2 months on where the price was then and where it is now, so I hope that answers your question. There is another question. Talks about the number of shares that we have on issue. And the question is will you undertake to put up a share consolidation at the upcoming AGM so that our shares don't trade at such embarrassingly low levels. That's not a part of the Notice of Meeting or I don't believe that we would look to consolidate the number of shares on issue. I think the reason the company has a larger number of shares on issue is because of the price of lithium has fallen so dramatically, we have had to issue shares to stay in the game and to keep the progress moving forward on the project at Kachi. The number of shares we currently got issued, which is slightly over 2 billion shares, is not -- is similar to a number of other companies in the space that have also had to access capital during a price of low -- during the period of low lithium pricing. So at this stage, there's no discussion at Board level around consolidation. Hope that answers your question. There's a question here. What is the connection between Lake Resources and Alexander Downer. Alexander Downer is currently working with a group of people who are assisting Lake as part of their strategic partnering process. And you may have seen some media recently where he has done some inspection at Lilac facilities in Oakland, California and was pretty impressed from all reports. So it's great to have someone with those sort of international connections on the Lake team. There are a number of questions here. If you can just stay with me 1 minute, I think I can answer a lot of them. There's a lot of -- there's a couple of questions here that I can't -- I'm not prepared to answer on the basis that they're quite technical, but we will get a written response back to that shareholder after the meeting. And that's basically all the questions that we've got through. Are there any other questions here in the room?

Relating to the notice or other general questions?

General questions, we can discuss after the meeting. But yes, that's okay. We -- on that basis, as there is no other business, I hereby close today's Extraordinary General Meeting of Shareholders. And thank you all for your attendance and support. The final votes from today's EGM will be announced to the ASX later today. Thank you very much. I now declare the meeting closed.