Cobalt Holdings plans London’s biggest mining IPO since 2022

Metal investment company Cobalt Holdings is targeting June for an initial public offering in London in what would potentially be the biggest UK first-time share sale in the mining and energy sector in more than two years, and one of the top ones across all sectors.

The company, which buys and stores physical cobalt, aims to raise approximately $230 million. A centrepiece of the IPO is a six-year supply agreement with Glencore (LON: GLEN), which includes an upfront $200 million purchase of 6,000 tonnes of cobalt at a discounted price. That volume represents about a third of the projected global cobalt surplus in 2025, according to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.

As part of the deal, Glencore will also take a 10% stake in Cobalt Holdings. Investment firm Anchorage Capital is expected to acquire a 9.5% stake, committing $23 million and agreeing to supply up to 1,500 tonnes of cobalt in 2031.

“We believe now is the right time to build a strategic stockpile of cobalt,” Cobalt Holdings chief executive Jake Greenberg said in a filing.

The IPO is also seen as a win for London’s struggling equity markets. In recent years, several UK companies have shifted listings to New York or European exchanges in search of higher valuations. Others have been taken private or acquired by foreign firms, shrinking London’s public market footprint.

Auditing giant EY reported that 88 companies delisted or transferred their primary listing from London’s main market last year, the highest number since 2009.

Cobalt Holding’s IPO may be the largest since Ithaca Energy (LON: ITH) raised around $300 million in late 2022. As of April 2025, Glencore holds the record for the largest all-time IPO on the London Stock Exchange. It debuted in May 2011 with an opening price of £36.34 billion.

The company said in February it was considering shifting its primary listing from London, likely to New York, or another venue where it can “get the right valuation”. 

Other notable IPOs in London include Kazatomprom’s (LON: KAP), the world’s largest uranium producer, which debuted in November 2018. The Kazakh sovereign fund Samruk-Kazyna floated 15% of Kazatomprom in a dual listing on the LSE and Astana International Exchange. The IPO raised about $451 million, valuing the company at around $3 billion.

Around the same time, another uranium producer, Yellow Cake (LON: YCA) — founded by the same person behind Cobalt Holdings, Greenberg — was listed in London. In 2019, the Jersey, US-based company raised approximately £151 million to acquire and store physical uranium, following a similar business model. It now holds 21.7 million pounds of uranium oxide in storage, with a net asset value of around $1.41 billion.

Cobalt Holding says its main advantage is that offers investors direct exposure to cobalt without the risks associated with mining operations.

The strategy is being launched against a volatile market backdrop: prices for the metal have plunged from nearly $40 per pound in 2022 to about $ $10 per pound in February. They have since increased by 60% to $16 per pound, following the Democratic Republic of Congo government’s announcement of a four-month ban on exports to help stabilize the market.

Despite the downtrend, cobalt prices have recently rebounded from decade-low levels. Cobalt Holdings argues the current oversupply is temporary and presents a buying opportunity.

Cobalt remains an essential material in electric vehicle battery production. While many lower-cost EVs now use lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries, longer-range vehicles still rely on nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) chemistry. Among those metals, cobalt is the most expensive, which continues to drive innovation and cost-reduction efforts across the industry.