Lithium bubble posterchild Kali Metals taps board member Paul Adams as new boss after Graeme Sloan departs

Kali Metals has turned to mining industry veteran and board member Paul Adams as its new leader less than five months after the lithium junior listed on the stock exchange to much fanfare. Mr Adams, a non-executive director, will take up the role of managing director on a base salary of $300,000 from July 1. He succeeds Graeme Sloan, who will remain with Kali as a non-executive director and assist with the transition. Mr Adams has more than 20 years’ experience in the mining industry in exploration, open pit and underground operations, both in Australia and overseas, including as MD at Spectrum Metals. He also worked as head of equities research at Perth stockbroker DJ Carmichael, specialising in small to mid-cap resource companies, and is an executive director of Kali’s 20.22 per cent shareholder, Kalamazoo Resources. Mr Adams said he had been with Kali since its inception and was keen to see the recently listed company through its exploration phase. “We have only just begun our exploration journey and we have a great deal of work ahead of us across our three highly prospective project areas in Australia,” he said. “I look forward to working with our technical and support teams to make Kali Metals a successful company for our shareholders and all our stakeholders.” Kali made a triumphant debut on the Australian Securities Exchange in early January after attracting the attention of Perth’s rich-listers, including Mineral Resources boss Chris Ellison. Mineral Resources itself piled into Kali post-listing as associates of Mr Ellison, including his mother-in-law, sold their stakes at a sizeable profit. Mr Ellison has retained his 4.9 per cent holding in the lithium aspirant. Stock in the company, which was spun out of Kalamazoo, raced almost 90 per cent higher than its 25¢ offer price on its first day of trade and peaked at 89¢ in the following days. After the initial flurry, it has since traded around the 40¢ to 45¢ mark and opens trade on Tuesday at 41¢. Kali’s listing also coincided with a period of intense investment interest in the lithium sector by Mr Ellison, fellow mining billionaire Gina Rinehart, and other industry heavy-hitters like Chile’s SQM. Kali holds an expansive lithium ground position spread predominantly across the Pilbara and Goldfields comprising nearly 4000sqkm. This includes a hefty land holding in Higginsville, near Kalgoorlie, at a nexus between Mineral Resources’ Mt Marion and Bald Hill lithium mines. Kali got the drill rods turning at Higgingville late last month as part of a wipespread 10,000m RC campaign by contractor Top Drill.