Shares in Ivanhoe Electric (TSX: IE; NYSE-AM), the latest endeavour of mining magnate Robert Friedland, were falling on their trading debut on Tuesday morning after the company raised as much as US$169 million in an initial public offering on Monday.
The exploration and development company, which owns properties in Arizona and Utah, along with a battery storage business, sold on Monday almost 14.4 million shares for US$11.75 each, slightly short of the US$12.50 each it aimed for.
The transaction, however, was still the biggest U.S. IPO since May 12, when oilfield services company ProFrac Holding Corp. raised US$328 million including so-called greenshoe shares.
Analysts had predicted a better market debut as Ivanhoe Electric's focus are critical minerals that are key to the global energy transition.
"We believe the United States is significantly underexplored and will yield major new discoveries of these metals," the company said in a regulatory filing. "Our mineral projects focus on copper, gold, silver, nickel, cobalt, vanadium and the platinum group metals."
Shares in the company, which spent US$39 million on exploration last year and posted a $59-million loss, were trading last in New York at US$11.40 or almost 3% lower than their sale price.
Ivanhoe Electric owns the Santa Cruz copper project in Arizona which it says is the second largest copper deposit in the U.S.
It also holds rights to the Tintic gold-copper mine in Utah and the Hog Heaven silver-gold-copper project in Montana.
Friedland made his fortune from the Voisey's Bay nickel project in Canada in the 1990s. Since then, he has been involved in some of the biggest mineral discoveries in the world, including the giant Oyu Tolgoi copper mine in Mongolia and the Kamoa-Kakula copper mine in Democratic Republic of Congo.
Forbes estimates Friedland's holdings are worth more than US$2 billion.