Allkem shareholders back Livent merger ahead of US vote

The news: A merger between Australian lithium play Allkem and US giant Livent is a step closer to going ahead, after more than 89% of shareholder votes backed the deal. Livent shareholders in the US will vote at a New York meeting at around 10pm AEDT, to create Arcadium Lithium, likely to become one of the world's biggest lithium companies.

The numbers: Under the deal, Allkem shareholders would receive one Arcadium share per Allkem share, and Livent shareholders would receive 2.406 Arcadium shares per security. Allkem's current market capitalisation sits at $6.8 billion, and Livent is worth USD3.2 billion ($4.7 billion).

The context: Allkem shareholders are expected to own 56% of the merged entity once the deal is done.

What they said: "The combination of Allkem and Livent is expected to create a highly complementary and vertically integrated business model to enhance operational flexibility and reliability, which is expected to result (in) greater value capture across the lithium value chain.