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Clontarf Energy’s new shareholder will be watching instability in Bolivia closely

Bolivia has huge reserves of lithium, an area of interest for the John Teeling-founded Irish company

Clontarf Energy co-founder John Teeling. Photograph: Dave Meehan

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Cantillon
Sat Jun 29 2024 - 06:00

A curious name has popped up on the share register of the John Teeling-founded Clontarf Energy lately – that of M Warner, who earlier this month bought a 3.13 per cent stake in the company and just this week raised it up to 5.98 per cent.

That gives him 430,000,000 shares in London-listed Clontarf, which are worth about £300,000 (€354,000) at the company’s current share price.

M Warner appears to be a London-based retail trader called Matthew Warner, who Cantillon has been able to establish has an interest in lithium, a particular area of interest for Clontarf, notably in Bolivia.

Bolivia has been the focus of a feverish gold rush lately to exploit its shimmering salt flats, underneath which lie huge deposits of lithium, a metal that is key to the creation of batteries for electric vehicles.

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There are an estimated 23 million metric tonnes of lithium in Bolivia, making it the biggest player in the world. Unsurprisingly, companies from Russia, China, the rest of Europe and the US are all keen to get a slice of the action.

Soon after Warner purchased his stake, things took a turn in Bolivia, when news broke of an attempted coup. A former head of the military, Gen Juan José Zúñiga, stormed the presidential palace in La Paz with a contingent of men and armoured cars in an attempt to depose the president, Luis Arce.

The coup failed, leading to his arrest. Soon after, he claimed it had been a stunt designed to boost Arce’s popularity – a claim that has been denied.

Warner will surely have been watching closely as he decides whether to buy any more shares in Clontarf. If he is inclined to do so, he will have been heartened by the performance of the company’s share price following the coup, when instead of wobbling in the face of such political instability, it virtually doubled in price.

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