Rare earths on sale | Vinci farewells Qld airport auction | Banks mandated for Fonterra

Good evening,

The Gina Rinehart-backed Arafura Rare Earths made headlines on Tuesday when it told shareholders it had secured conditional approvals for more than $US1 billion ($1.51 billion) in debt financing for its Nolans project in the Northern Territory.

But the equity raising that followed a day later was barely a whimper. It asked for just $27 million – compared with the $US793 million equity raising it has said it needs – and still had to offer a 15.8 per cent discount to the last close while raising at the same level as it last did in December. It was almost like Arafura’s big debt package didn’t even happen.

A similar story played out at two fellow rare earths companies – Meteoric Resources and VHM Limited – which were also running small cash calls at hefty discounts despite pithy descriptions of their projects. In VHM’s case, the discount was a whopping 27.6 per cent.

The trifecta of raisings is as good a reminder as any that rare earths projects are yet to test their mettle when it comes to making money for their investors, despite their star-studded registers and short sprints of ecstatic share price performance.

And that applies across the board, from the $439 million Arafura to the $5.7 billion Lynas Rare Earths and the $2.5 billion Iluka Resources, both of which still have their hands out for government subsidies. Rare earths are not widely traded on commodity exchanges, and pricing – which dictates the viability of projects – has been a roller-coaster ride.

Read the full story tomorrow and more on the Street Talk page.

A sell-off in energy and real estate stocks dragged the Australian sharemarket lower on Wednesday.

Click here for the latest equity market wrap.