Once a time, FMC Corporation (NYSE: FMC) Stock was a lithium supply. It is no longer, it has not been for years and it is bad that it is shown earlier this month, when weaker than expected turnover resulted in a large (74%) decrease in reported profit, the risk of leaving diversification may indicate And the focus on just one sector (agricultural chemicals).
But what happened to FMC’s Lithiumbedrijf? And where is it now? That is the story that I want to tell today, for everyone who has missed it at that time, and for anyone who is perhaps interested in buying one of the best lithium growth stories in the coming years.
In 2018, FMC was one of the world’s largest lithium shares. It had his lithium company in the course of more than four decades, and next to Chili’s Chemistry and Minera Society And AlbemarleRanked among the three largest listed producers of lithium for batteries for electric cars.
Electric vehicles were then on the rise and FMC wanted to benefit from that trend by turning its lithium activities as a pure game on this popular product. In 2018, FMC announced a spin -off from its lithium company as the new public ‘Livert Corporation’. What remained was the $ 4.6 billion company (today closer to $ 4.2 billion in sales), focused on the production and sale of insecticides, herbicides, fungicides and chemicals for crops, which we know today as FMC Corporation.
And spun alive? Well, Livert remained an independent company for about five years, until the beginning of 2024, when the company started a merger of equals with Australian Lithium Miner Allkem (himself previously known as Orocobre). These two companies have renamed themselves Arcadium Lithium (NYSE: ALTM) After their merger, and poured on their “Premier Lithium sources and production locations at important locations worldwide over the lithium value chain.”
Arcadium Lithium remains an independent lithium producer to this day, and with $ 155 million in Gaap -Netto income in the past 12 months it is perhaps one of the most successful lithium shares. But Arcadium Lithium will not be independent for much longer. Last year, in London established mine giant Rio Tinto Group (NYSE: RIO) Announced that it would pay $ 6.7 billion to acquire the whole of Arcadium -Lithium and use the company to compensate for lithium income from his own small “minerals” activities.
Rio is still completing this last merger, but as soon as it happens, Rio plans to create a new business segment called Rio Tinto Lithium. With less than $ 7 billion in estimated annual turnover, I would expect that Rio Tinto Lithium will eventually be the third or fourth largest business unit in Rio (which focuses on mining iron and aluminum).
