‘Good luck to them’: Paladin Energy boss says closing $1.25b uranium deal will oust short sellers

Paladin Energy chief Ian Purdy says uranium non-believers will be scrambling to unwind bets against the company once it closes off a deal being scrutinised by Canada’s foreign investment umpire. A recent cooling in prices for the nuclear-linked commodity have seen nay-sayers switch focus from lithium and into uranium stocks, with Paladin taking the new unwanted mantle on Friday as the most shorted company on the ASX. Mr Purdy apologised to shareholders at its annual general meeting in Perth for the company’s 25 per cent share price plunge in 2024, and said closing out an all-scrip merger with Toronto-listed Fission Uranium — due to be completed in September — should send most shorters packing. “The best thing we can do for our shareholders and ourselves is to bring the Fission transaction to completion, and we’re very, very keen to see that occur by the end of this year,” he said. “We believe we’ll see an unwinding all of those transaction specific (short) positions . . . We think that will be a fundamental opportunity for us to return to more normalised trading. “Good luck to them. They’re not only a betting against us, they’re betting against the uranium market.” Uranium spot prices got above $US100 a pound at the start of 2024 as new enthusiasm about nuclear power’s role in the energy transition spurred projections of supply shortages. But prices have fallen below $US80. The future of Paladin’s $1.25b deal is in the hands of the Canadian Government, who are in the middle of what Mr Purdy acknowledged was a “thorough” investigation of the transaction in light of the country’s tougher national security and stance on foreign buyers. Paladin’s flagship mine Langer Heinrich in Namibia is 25 per cent owned by China National Nuclear Corporation. Another entity, China General Nuclear Power Corporation, owns 11.3 per cent of target Fission. Pressed on the transaction timeline by shareholders, the CEO said he was “confident” the acquisition would get done before the longstop date, or deadline, at the end of February. Paladin is expecting ‘feedback’ on the transaction by the end of the year but the review could extend to as late as January 20. As well as deal delays, Paladin has struggled get the Langer Heinrich asset on track to full capacity since restarting the mine in March amid the latest burst of uranium investment interest. Output had to be scaled back dramatically for the financial year from between 4 million pounds and 4.5 million pounds, to a range of 3Mlb and 3.6Mlb. Mr Purdy told shareholders he would be jetting off to the site next week. Paladin shares closed 2 per cent lower at $7.60 on Friday.