Chairman of China's Tianqi Lithium required to lend company $117m

Struggling miner's shares jump, as investors see owner having 'skin in the game'

20201222 Chairman of China's Tianqi Lithium

Tianqi Lithium Chairman Jiang Weiping and members of his family have committed some of their personal fortune to the company. (Source photos by Reuters and Tianqi Lithium)

KENJI KAWASE, Nikkei Asia chief business news correspondent

HONG KONG -- The chairman of troubled Chinese miner Tianqi Lithium is to lend the company $117 million under a condition of the company's deal with Australian miner IGO Ltd.

Tianqi Lithium came close to defaulting last month on $1.88 billion in loans taken out two years ago to finance the purchase of a large stake in Chilean lithium miner SQM. IGO helped Tianqi Lithium out of the debt squeeze by agreeing to buy nearly half of Tianqi Lithium's interest in a joint venture that controls Greenbushes, the world's largest lithium mine, and a nearby processing facility in Western Australia state.

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