Kali Metals Ltd (ASX: KM1) shares have caught the eye this week following the company's extremely successful IPO.
As we covered here on Monday, the lithium explorer's shares burst out of the gates on day one with a huge gain.
Since then, Kali Metals shares haven't held back, rising a further 20% on Tuesday.
This means that the Kali Metals share price is now trading at 53 cents, which is more than double the IPO listing price of 25 cents.
What's going on with Kali Metals shares?
Investors have been scrambling to buy the company's shares this week amid excitement over its collection of lithium projects that are primarily in the Pilbara and Eastern Yilgarn regions in Western Australia.
This includes the company's DOM's Hill and Marble Bar projects, which are co-owned by lithium giant Sociedad Química y Minera de Chile (NYSE: SQM).
But if you thought that it was just speculative day traders that have been scrambling to buy Kali Metals shares this week, you would be wrong.
This morning, Mineral Resources Ltd (ASX: MIN) revealed that it has built up a stake of almost 10% in the company.
And while its billionaire founder Chris Ellison is known to have taken part in Kali Metals' IPO, the company made it very clear that these are two separate holdings. One is a personal holding of Ellison, the other is a strategic stake for Mineral Resources. It explains:
There has been media publicity regarding a shareholding of MinRes Managing Director Chris Ellison in the Company of 4.85%. To avoid confusion, those shares are held by an entity controlled by Mr Ellison in his personal capacity. MinRes does not have a relevant interest or voting power in those shares and accordingly they do not form part of the MinRes interest disclosed in this notice.
Also on the company's share registry are the family offices for the Myer and Baillieu families.
Is it too late to buy?
As things stand, none of the major brokers are covering the newly listed ASX lithium share. In light of this, it is difficult to say whether it is a buy at present.
But what we do know is that Mineral Resources was buying Kali Metals shares for an average of 48.15 cents per share.
That's only a touch lower than where its shares trade today, so clearly the mining giant sees plenty of value in them around current levels.
Exploration update
In other news, this morning Kali Metals released an announcement that revealed that recent exploration activities have identified and sampled lithium bearing pegmatites across multiple locations within the Higginsville District Scale tenement holding.
This includes the identification of spodumene at its Spargoville Project, with assays from rock chip samples returning results up to 3.69% Li20.
Looking ahead, a reverse circulation drilling program at Spargoville is scheduled to commence in the first half of 2024. This will be the first lithium-focused drilling undertaken in the area.
All eyes will be on those results when they are released.
