Thank you. I'd now like to welcome Brandon Munro, Executive Chairman, to begin the conference. Brandon, over to you.
Thanks very much everyone for joining us. It's really a transformational and very exciting moment in the company's long history. Firstly, the slides that I'll be talking to today have been lodged onto the ASX platform. I'd encourage you to retrieve those slides, to read them in detail, and also, the detail in the announcement is very helpful for understanding this transaction. So please go back and review all of that. Now, I'm going to be talking to a snapshot of the transaction. I'll present the slides, and then there's opportunity for extensive questions at the end. This really is a transformational opportunity for the company as we've announced a strategic financing with the leading global integrated nuclear utility, the Chinese group, CNNC. What it does is it delivers Bannerman a pathway to being a production business for a long-term operation of this mine.
But what the transaction does is it means we're construction funded, strongly price leveraged, and strategically partnered with one of the best and leading utilities in the business. The next two slides are important notices and disclaimers, so I'd like to proceed directly to slide number four. So about Bannerman Energy. So we have the Etango Project. It's in Namibia, in Erongo Region. It's very large, it's very advanced. It has all of the permits required, and in fact, as you all appreciate from the photographs in some of these slides, we're well advanced with our early works construction on site. Proceeding to slide number five. This is a corporate snapshot, and we've highlighted on this slide, the cash position and the liquid assets that we have available to us in the context of, moving this project forward. Proceeding to slide number six.
This is a slide that outlines what this deal is. So CNNC Overseas Limited will invest into the JV company that owns our 95% share in the project in return for a 45% interest. The subscription for that interest is $294.5 million of cash in one tranche at completion. And in addition to that, it's important for us and important for CNNC, that we continue with those early works programs on site, and we continue moving this project forward during the completion process with this transaction. And so, CNNC will reimburse us for their 45% share, backdated to 1 July 2025. We expect that to be up to $60 million between 1 July 2025 and when we complete this transaction, and accordingly, that reimbursement is capped at $25 million.
Those funds become available to us at a corporate level, and we can use those funds to reinvest back into the project. Now, very importantly for this transaction, we have a world-class and market-leading cornerstone life of mine offtake. So CNNC Overseas Limited receive and have the obligation to take 60% of the product from Etango over its full life of mine. It's on arm's length terms, and it's a fully market-related offtake based on a combination of term and spot prices at the time of delivering it. There's no floors, there's no ceilings, and that is what drives the transformation of this company and ensures that it has market-leading leverage to uranium price upside. There's another aspect to this offtake that's really important for us as we go into construction and then into production as a uranium business.
The degree of flexibility that we have as to when and in what volumes and in which years we deliver that 60% is exceptional. And in addition to that, we've got highly favorable payment terms that will quite dramatically reduce the amount of working capital that the Etango Mine will require, particularly in the early years of construction, when both financial and delivery risk would otherwise be at its peak. This is a useful junction just to talk about the see-through valuation of that investment into the project. This, the calculable see-through valuation, it was struck at what we calculate to be a very significant premium to where we traded most of last year.
However, with recent volatility in uranium equities and a, an exchange rate movement that's moved quite dramatically against us in recent weeks, it's now coming at a read-through that's about a 10% discount to the three-month VWAP of our trading price. I bring this up early because I wouldn't want to be distracted by this aspect of the transaction and have this transaction judged simply on the see-through value and whether or not it, represents the type of premium that investors would expect. This is a transaction that needs to be valued holistically, and it's a transaction that needs to be considered in the context of the transformational benefits that it delivers to the company. Put simply, we are not the same company, and we are not the same business, and we are certainly not the same investment proposition today that we were two days ago.
Let's move to slide seven.... So what this does for us is, it gives us strong financial flexibility, dramatically lowers the risk, and as I said, delivers industry-leading price exposure via that 60% market-related offtake, and all of the flexibility it gives us with the balance of the 40% that we can market. This transaction came about at the end of a two-year global financing process. That enabled us to be confident that this was not only the best outcome from that process, but holistically the best outcome for the company moving forward. It was superior to both other strategic alternatives that we had and that presented themselves, and certainly superior to the structural comparison, which was an equity and debt raising.
We progressed the debt terms to a very advanced level to give us the alternative, should we see an equity cost to capital that we found attractive. That's given us the ability to compare the financial impacts on the shareholder value between this transaction and what a comparable equity and debt transaction would look like. And I'm quite happy to say that the difference in value creation is dramatic between those two. But it's also what it delivers for us. So in one transaction, we, it delivers the construction funding that we need to progress with the Etango build, and we've maintained majority ownership.
We not only get the money to build, but it dramatically lowers the risk proposition, both financial and execution risk, that we present as we move through the phases of construction into ramp-up, into first delivery, into first cash flow, and then into being a long-term production business. I've talked about the market-priced cornerstone offtake. It's very, very important, but what it also does is we have both the flexibility but also absolute control and discretion on how we, as Bannerman, market the joint venture's 40% that is not committed to CNNC. That enables us to have independent customer relationships for that 40%, and it enables us to then build a uranium business. The contracting portfolio around that 40% of our production is obviously highly complementary to the 60% fully market-related offtake that CNNC will take from the project.
So what it presents is a long-term partnership with the global nuclear giant, that their ambitions, their need for uranium, their forward-looking and strategic outlook is very aligned with what we want to create in terms of a uranium business. And then finally, the conditions precedent, which are detailed in the announcement. It lists all of the conditions precedent in the announcement. There's limited satisfaction risk in our view. So this is a transaction that is highly likely to complete. We just need to work through the process. So if you look at that in the aggregate, it's a company-transforming transaction. It provides construction funding, it enables our business and our company to be highly price-leveraged, and the strategic partnership positions us both for lower risk and also a long-term business. And look, it's been an extensive process.
The due diligence was very, very detailed, and I'd hope that the market is able to then take this as a very strong validation of the technical veracity, all of the work that's been done, and the strategic leadership of the company over the last 20 years. Can we please proceed to slide number eight? This contains the details of the transaction. I'll come back to any of these in question time, and it's also available in the announcement itself. Slide nine talks to CNNC as a global partner. So I'll just put this in perspective. First of all, they're operating 27,000 GW commercial nuclear reactors. That is an enormous fleet for a single organization to be running. But it's not only that, they're constructing, as we stand, 18 units. CNNC, together with other Chinese utilities, are setting the standard globally in terms of reactor construction.
They're building reactors in under five years, consistently. They're building them at a cost of capital that enables the nuclear power sector to continue to expand dramatically beyond the very optimistic projections that are in the market. And this success that they're having domestically will drive further success and a long-term vision. That, of course, benefits us. Over and above that, CNNC delivers particular benefits in country. As you can see from that map, they own majority and operate the Rössing uranium mine. Since 2019, they're our neighbors. The people who run that mine are our friends, and that's enabled us to have a very clear and accurate impression of what type of a joint venture partner CNNC would be to us.
While they've got the majority in that mine, it still gives us a great deal of comfort that we are positioning and partnering with really the absolute partner of choice for us in our circumstances.... And out of interest, CNUC has a market capitalization of about $27 billion. So CNOL, CNNC Overseas Limited, who is our direct counterparty, is a 100% subsidiary of CNUC. That type of financial balance sheet, that capacity, that these organizations have as a group, is something that will really be very beneficial for us in terms of a long-term partnership. Moving to slide 10. This slide outlines how this transaction has been formulated to ensure that we're construction funded. So on the left, you can see the controlled budget or estimate, or the CBE pre-production capital cost estimate of $353 million.
Now, that was the number that we published in June 2024. That's a post-DFS number. That's following the completion of front-end engineering and design. And bear in mind that we've continued on the construction pathway since then, so we're confident with that number. We are already delivering this project on time and on budget, and also there's a number of key contracts where we are consistently and constantly receiving binding tender responses. And that enables us to keep checking in on, are we happy with where that number is? And as we stand today, we are. Now, the buildup that you can see is, first of all, the money that has been spent before 30 June 2025, and that was about $10 million of that $353. The $294.5 million investment from CNNC group into the joint venture.
And then when you add the roughly $60 million that will be spent from 1 July 2025 until completion, you can see that we have the construction funding aspect of this transaction or, or of this project, delivered by this transaction. Now, there's obviously other costs and other investments required to get into production. There's joint venture, beg your pardon, there's working capital and other JV co-expenses, and we will have our own corporate expenses on top of that. With those joint venture and working capital expenses, that will be a proportionate contribution from CNNC and ourselves, and the residual JV co-funding represented on the right. Any JV co-funding requirement for Bannerman to contribute in excess of its existing corporate cash reserves at transaction completion, it's going to be modest.
That's transformational for us as an investment proposition, considering that most analysts and most investors have been looking at Bannerman with the expectation that we would need to raise hundreds of millions in order to achieve an equity and debt financing for this project. Moving to the next slide, 11. In terms of moving forward, we're expecting that we can progressively complete the conditions precedent by the middle of the year. As I said, they're not onerous; we just need to work through them. That would see us completing around mid-year. We will then undertake a consideration with our fully formed joint venture partners of the final investment decision. That's expected to be in the second half.
That enables us to transition from the current early works construction program into full-scale Etango construction, with the confidence that money's now in the bank, in the joint venture bank account. And according to that, timetable, we would be putting the first pounds in the can, the first uranium production, during 2028, moving towards a full ramp-up and full production capacity in 2029. Slide 12. So look, in summary, before we take questions, what type of company are we today that we were not two days ago? This has been absolutely transformational for us. It's given us the construction funding we need with the optimal financing solution from a two-year global process that considered both strategic alternatives and equity and debt alternative funding for the project. We've retained majority ownership and control, but importantly, we've got a debt-free execution pathway.
We have an industry-leading, arm's length, market-priced cornerstone offtake that becomes an enabler for the whole business and delivers price exposure to upside uranium market sector sentiment. And then finally, we've got a strategic partner with a global leader. That positions Bannerman as the premier uranium exposure on the ASX, and arguably in the sector, and reinforces our belief that we will be the next greenfields developer, to come into this sector after a very long period of time. I'll open up for questions, please.
Thank you, Brandon, and as mentioned, we will now begin the Q&A session. If you would like to ask a question at this time, please press star, followed by the number one on your telephone keypad to raise your hand and join the queue. If you would like to withdraw your question, press the star one again. When you are called upon to ask your questions, please use your device handset and ensure you are not on mute. And in the interest of answering as many questions as possible, we ask you to please limit your questions to one and one follow-up, and rejoin the queue for any additional questions. And your first question comes from the line of Milan Tomic of JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thanks.
... Yeah, good morning, Brandon and team. Just a few from me. I guess, just, how should we be thinking about the expanded production scenario? I know you've stated there that it seems like a higher likelihood now to go from the three and a half to seven . Would you be looking to start at three and a hal and then transition to 7 or, you know, start at seven straight away? Just, yeah, a bit of color, and that would be good.
Yeah. Thanks, Milan. Thanks for joining us. So yes, we will start according to the Etango -8 development pathway. That's been very well considered and technically de-risked, and we're well on the path to that production pathway through what we're doing on site. And incidentally, it's still the most economic and most feasible way of getting to the 6.7 million pounds that we anticipate producing under the expansion capacity. So even if we had all of the money we needed right now, that's how we would prefer to do it. But what this financing transaction does for us, though, is I think it's fair to say that it increases both the probability and the attractiveness of expanding in that way.
This is a joint venture at the project level, so our partner will continue to have a 45% interest in the expanded production. That obviously means that they're very motivated to see it succeed and go through. But because of the nature of this joint venture and the fact that we're not taking on any debt at this point, and for that reason, our margins will be a lot higher. I think it delivers a number of stronger financing alternatives when we think about the expansion. And bear in mind, that's an expansion when we're already producing, we're already delivering. By necessity, we would be highly profitable, otherwise we wouldn't want to do it.
With such a big partner, with the 60% offtake locked in for that expanded production, I think it clears a number of the hurdles that we would need to work through before making that expansion decision.
Yeah, very clear. And maybe just another one from me. If you can just touch on the rationale behind, you know, choosing CNNC as a partner. I imagine that there were competing offers as well, but yeah, you know, what made this one stand out versus the rest? Was it the financing terms or just the general partnership structure or anything else there?
It was an extensive process, so we did have the opportunity to compare what a business partnering with CNNC would look like compared to others in the business. It was the demonstrable preference. It was all of the above in terms of what you've articulated, Milan. Yes, it was a very attractive proposition that we are pleased with, both in terms of the value that we've achieved, but also the go-forward terms. A lot of the value with this transaction is in the nuance, and it's in the nuance that becomes very important as we have prepared ourselves to move from being a developer, to going to construction, to going into ramp up, producing, delivering pounds into what would otherwise be very rigid contractual arrangements with counterparties, with a lot of financial risk if you don't settle, through to being a production business.
It's a nuance of this deal that smooths dramatically the operating and financial risk that would be associated with that transition. And in many respects, it's those nuances could only be delivered by a group such as CNNC, or perhaps only CNNC could deliver those nuances. And it comes back to the fact that they have such a large portfolio of production and purchasing, and such a large requirement for their uranium. You know, I go back to the stats in terms of who they are and what their portfolio is today. It's 27 nuclear reactors that they're buying for, 18 units that they're buying for in terms of first load and under construction. And that pipeline across China is growing by ten reactors every year, and you can expect CNNC to be enjoying a significant share of those.
So they're the attributes, together with the culture of the organization. I said before, Milan, that we really understand their culture because we've seen how our friends have run the mine at Rössing since they took over from Rio Tinto. Together with all of the time that we've spent together, as you can probably imagine, over the last couple of years, we're very impressed. We're very impressed with the organization, with its strategic capability, with the professionalism and energy and vision of their executives. And frankly, I really just wouldn't want for a better partner in this business.
Thanks for that, Brandon. Appreciate the insight.
Your next question comes from the line of Andrew Hines of Shaw and Partners. Your line is open.
Yeah. Thank you. Thanks, Brandon, for the call, and look, congratulations to you and Gavin and Matt and the team. You know, that's yeah, I agree with you, a transformational transaction. You are now fully funded through to first production at the construction level. You know, possibly needs a bit more capital at the group level for working capital, understand that. In terms of the... Yeah, a couple of questions around the transaction in terms of the way that the thought process outlined here. It looks like you've sold this for a pretty good price on the base Etango project.
If it was just Etango-8, you know, the 25% of the Etango resource that will be consumed in that first part of the project, I think the look-through valuation from this acquisition price looks pretty attractive. But one of the features of the Etango resource is clearly the optionality and expandability of it. Just interested in your take on how did you negotiate with the counterparty, the value for all those expansions and optionality? And the second question is around, you know, alternatives and particularly the Western Utilities. I would imagine there are fuel buyers at Western Utilities waking up this morning pretty dismayed by, you know, 60% of one of the biggest uranium projects this decade coming to the market now locked up by the Chinese.
Are there any issues with Western Utilities around the project? Now, I know you've already got a couple of offtake agreements with them, but is there any problems with Chinese involvement in this project with additional offtakes for the Western Utilities? Thanks, Bran.
Thanks, Andrew. I'll start with the second question first. It's an important attribute of this deal, as I've said, that we have absolute control over the 40% of the product from Etango that the joint venture will produce that isn't sold to CNNC. There's extensive provisions in the document that I can tell you required extensive discussion, where we absolutely held the line that that is entirely our business, and the only rights that our joint venture partner has is to have a third-party auditor confirm the financials that we're telling them. No visibility on the customer itself, no visibility on the terms, no visibility on the contracts. There is an absolute ironclad ring-fencing of that aspect of the business.
Now, the reason that took a fair bit of discussion is, as you can well imagine, you know, their point is, "Well, hang on a sec, we've got a 45% economic interest in all of this. Surely we should be allowed to have more vision on that." And the reason why we held our ground there is it's very important that we can use this to then build a broader uranium business. We need to have and own, as Bannerman, not as the joint venture, those customer relationships and maintain the confidence with those customers. I've spoken, as you can imagine, to some of the leading industry figures overnight. One of those people who's been very supportive of your webinars, Andrew, and they understand that, and they don't see this as an impediment.
Western utilities might have a different view if it was controlled by another sovereign country. But given the levels of control and the levels of ring-fencing and confidentiality that we have, we don't see it as being a problem. In fact, it's going to be an enabler for our marketing because, as you say, there isn't a lot of this project left to be sold. And I think, western and other Asian utilities, that gives them a good reason to be thinking a little bit more assertively about how much of Etango's production is gonna fill their reactors. Now, looking to your first question about the expansion. There's a whole webinar that we could have, Andrew, on the constraints for a Chinese SOE in establishing valuation with a business like this.
Long gone are the days where Chinese companies, and particularly SOEs, are overpaying, and particularly putting a lot of value on future potential. What I think is important here is we look at the value of the business going forward. We look at what this enables, and that's particularly true and important for the expansion. What this enables is it means, first of all, Bannerman now has a look-through attributable production once we're in Etango initial production of two million pounds . But that's two million pounds without any debt burden, with this exceptional exposure to future market pricing and all of the upside risk that that entails, with a very low operating and financial risk profile because of the nature of the joint venture, because of the funding that's coming in, but also because of the nature of the partner.
We need to remember that our partner, unlike a debt provider or even another financial investor, they want the pounds to come out of the ground even more than we do because they're running the country's infrastructure on the uranium that's coming out of, that will come out of Etango and their other mining and purchasing operations.
So in terms of... The question for me is, the relevant question is not so much how much value did we extract on behalf of the potential for the expansion? The question is: What does Bannerman's attributable role in that expanded production mean for the value of this company?
It means that we'll be, if and when that expansion is executed, at a relatively low cost of capital for the funding that's required for that expansion, we will then have an attributable uranium business that's producing on an attributable basis, close to four million pounds per annum . That's attractive.
Yeah. Thanks, Brandon. That's good, good answers. Just a follow-up from me, you talk about strategic partnership with CNNC now or CNO. What, what are you... You know, obviously, very early days, but what, what are you thinking about that beyond Etango? You know, how might that look, look for you as a company, either, you know, within Namibia or in other jurisdictions? Can you see yourself doing further transactions or, or developing further assets beyond Namibia with, with CNNC?
Look, it is early days, you know, we've got a transaction to complete, and that'll be our focus until then, for sure. But if you add it together, you've got two partners who have a deep respect for each other and have got to know each other very well over this process and during the period between now and completion. You've got a partner with a lot of capital and a voracious demand for uranium... in CNNC. And in Bannerman, you have a company who has proven itself to have world-class development capability. And for everyone who's on site today, and all of the analysts who can't join this call because they're on site with us today, that will be in full view and display. And Andrew, I know you've been to site and seen that world-class development capacity yourself.
You've also got a company who has proven itself in ourselves to be astute commercial operators. I think when you put that together, it positions Bannerman very well for future cooperation with the CNNC group, but it also positions us really well for expanding our business without CNNC. So that's what I find particularly exciting. We've got the capacity here to now put the funding of Etango on rails once we've got to completion, and then start to expand the business in due course.
Awesome. Yeah, once again, congrats, Brandon. That's, I know how much work's gone into that over the last 12 months, getting this done, and, I agree with you, transformational transaction, and it'll be great to see, Etango come to life now in the next two years. Well done.
Thanks, Andrew.
Before we continue on to the next question, a reminder, if you would like to join the queue, to please press star one. Your next question comes from the line of Glyn Lawcock of Barrenjoey. Please go ahead.
Oh, Brandon, good morning. I just want to understand the structure a little bit more. As you say, they contribute $295 million odd into the JV. That's unallocated between equity and the shareholder loan matching. What's the shareholder loan matching? How much is that? And does that mean then, as soon as you start generating free cash flow at the JV level, it gets distributed on the equity ownership basis? Or do you... You know, because I'm just trying to understand how much you've put in shareholder loan-wise. Thanks.
Thanks, Glyn. Yes, that's correct. The way it works is, the joint venture needs to be 45-55 in all respects, and that includes the value that the shareholder loans represent. As you understand well, Glyn, but perhaps others don't, it's important that we maximize the continued value of our shareholder loans, because that enables a mechanism for us to be repaid. And coming into the joint venture as 45% partners, they wanted to ensure that the total shareholder loan balance was sitting at 45% them, 55% us. So that's simply all it is. We didn't convert all of our shareholder loans. We didn't carry forward all of our shareholder debt.
There's a proportion of it, a significant proportion of it, that we are converting to equity, and, that's to meet the equivalent of thin capital requirements and so on, in country and through our corporate structures. The total proportion of the debt, from that 294 is roughly $80 million.
Okay, so about $80 million of the $294 is gonna become shareholder loan. Okay. And then you make the point about you're gonna have the offtake, 60% goes to CNNC, and obviously, they'll be favorable terms. Could you maybe provide a little bit more color? Because one of the things that obviously is beneficial to one of your peers, who's got the CNNC as a partner, is they pay them almost at the mine gate, just about when it goes on a boat, whereas some of these new players have to wait months for qualification, and it can be six+ months before they get cash from first production. How quickly do you think you'll get cash from that first production under the CNNC deal?
This is an area that's obviously subject to commercial confidentiality. Our understanding is it's effectively the same payment terms that one of our peers in Namibia has with CNNC, that you seem to know a bit about, Glenn. What that does is it dramatically changes the risk profile as we move into production, and in particular, it ameliorates and reduces the amount of work, the amount of working capital that we would otherwise need to have. You know, I'll put this in perspective. We've obviously been dealing with utilities for quite some time now. We have signed contracts with utilities, we've had numerous discussions with them, and we've been preparing ourselves over the last two years to be delivering uranium with all of the associated logistical and financial considerations that we need to understand as a business.
Without an offtake like this, it is an excruciating working capital requirement to bridge that gap, particularly for a single asset producer of our size. Often, utilities will require, significant delivery flexibility, so they will nominate... For example, we want our pounds delivered in the second half of 2029. Okay, great. But then they get to tell us in the first half of 2029, when in that second half it'll be. So we might find out, literally on a few months' notice that, they want it five months later than we're planning for. And you've got multiple contracts that you would otherwise need to be managing in that way. You need to then produce the pounds, put them on the ship, send them to the converter. The utilities will have different converters, so we'd be sending to, say, three different converters.
The materials need to arrive at the converter. They need to be tested and cleared. They're then provided, they're then registered in our converter account, and depending on what you've negotiated with that particular contract, but it's typical that the utility then has a period of time to call for those to be transferred, those pounds to be transferred into their converter account, and it might only be 14 or even 30 days after the transfer is confirmed, that we then get paid. That can be months. As you say, it can be months and months. And as a new business, you can't be too aggressive with your working capital planning because in ramp-up, you can never be absolutely certain that you're gonna be producing this many pounds in July, this many pounds in August, this many pounds in September.
It's a bit lumpy during ramp-up and during those first years as you're getting into production. So what this offtake does is it enables us to be getting cash flow quickly, as you say, literally months earlier than with any of the industry-standard corresponding offtake agreements. It. We've got a lot of delivery flexibility, so we can deliver the pounds as they're produced, and as each ship comes in, we can effectively clear the warehouse and get paid on that. But really importantly, it also means that we can deliver into this 60% offtake around our other delivery obligations. So with the 40% that we are marketing, we can offer really attractive delivery flexibility to that, and we can ensure we're paid for that delivery flexibility, because 60% of the balance can be used to manage those different delivery fluctuations.
So it can manage any fluctuations in production, any fluctuations in shipping routes, and just the fluctuations in utility delivery requirements. Having grappled and prepared ourselves for going into being a producing uranium business, I can't overstate the benefit that we get from that flexibility and that offtake.
Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And then, Brandon, if I could just squeeze one more in. I mean, as you said, the market may be disappointed by the see-through that you talked about in your opening remarks, but could you maybe share with us, you know, like, obviously, uranium prices moved up a lot, but only recently, particularly the long-term price. When you've been negotiating this deal and cut it, you know, all these over this period, I mean, can you share what sort of price was implicit in the agreed deal? 'Cause clearly, you know, you have to cut it at some price, but if price is higher than that, we all benefit, yourself included.
We don't know the exact price, Glyn. There's an extensive third-party valuation process that is required for any Chinese SOE to ink a deal. And it's far more extensive than you would expect from a Western party, and the capacity for an organization to use its own judgment beyond that third-party validation is really quite limited when you're dealing with an SOE. So we had to negotiate with the cards that were in our hands at the time. Most of that negotiation, well, all of that negotiation took place last calendar year. It's very difficult for a Chinese SOE to pay big premiums versus the see-through valuation of publicly traded companies.
As you know, as well as everyone, Glyn, it was really hard in uranium equities last year, and that's why we still managed to achieve a significant look-through premium compared to where we spent most of last year trading. Look, for good reasons, and we're happy about it, uranium equities have gone up, and the exchange rate has moved from 65 to about 70, and the deal doesn't look as good today as it did at the end of last year. But that's a much better problem to have than equity prices have gone down, and we look like negotiating champions because it's a big premium. I'd much rather be in the position we are now. And again, I'll go back to the point, this is about what this deal delivers for us as a company going forward.
Whatever the look-through valuation is, it's interesting, but it's not relevant to what this business is valued at from today.
Wonderful. Thanks very much for your time.
There are no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the call back over to Brandon for closing remarks.
Look, thanks everyone for joining us. This is an exciting time for the company. We've been at this project, developing it for almost 20 years since the discovery hole, or since it was first applied for, and almost 20 years since the discovery hole was drilled. I've been with the company for the last 10 years working up to this moment. It is truly transformational. The company that Bannerman is and the investment proposition that Bannerman is today, is dramatically different to what we were a week ago. We've got the construction funding, it's the optimal finance solution. For remaining finances that we need to put into the business, we've got a range of alternatives as to how that working capital contributions can be delivered.
We've retained majority ownership in a really attractive asset that's low technical risk, and now is low financing risk and low operational risk, with the potential to expand into near GBP 4 million per annum attributable production. We've done that with a debt-free execution pathway, without the debt burden, without all of the consequent strings attached that having a debt provider would entail, and a big enabler of that is the extraordinary arm's-length market price cornerstone offtake. It's the investment into our project by our partner, that's enabled us to secure an offtake on those terms. We simply wouldn't be able to get an offtake on those terms from anyone in the world if they weren't a partner in the business, enjoying the economic benefit of that offtake at a operational level as well. And finally, we're very proud now to be strategic partners with CNNC.
They are the number one name in the business for what we need to do going forward. So I look forward to delivering on this construction, I look forward to completion of this transaction, and in particular, I look forward to demonstrating to you and the market and our shareholders and investors, all of the potential that we now have as a company as a result of this transaction. Thanks for joining us.
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for joining us. You may now disconnect.