Elliott Investment Management has set its sights on major mining properties worth more than US$1B with new venture, Hyperion, as first reported by the Financial Times. The undertaking will reportedly be led by Sandeep Biswas, the former chief executive of gold mining group, Newcrest Mining, and an expert dealmaker and operator in the sector.
As of 31 December 2023, the Elliot Investment manages approximately US$65.5B in assets. The firm employs a staff of 570 people, with nearly half dedicated to portfolio management and analysis, trading, and research, in its Florida headquarters and affiliated offices elsewhere.
The move comes as the world is increasingly consumed by the growing demands of sustainability and greener technologies. Elliott has ramped up its efforts to hunt for underfunded mining projects that are capable of entering the race towards net-zero.
Global demand for batteries is increasing, driven largely by the imperative to reduce climate change through electrification of mobility and the broader energy transition. Just as analysts tend to underestimate the amount of energy generated from renewable sources, battery demand forecasts typically underestimate the market size and are regularly corrected upwards.
In an earlier publication, McKinsey & Company, alongside the Global Battery Alliance (GBA) projected a market size of 2.6TWh and yearly growth of 25% by 2030. But a 2022 analysis by the McKinsey Battery Insights team projects that the entire lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery chain, from mining through recycling, could grow by over 30% annually from 2022 to 2030, reaching a value of more than US$400B and a market size of 4.7TWh.
