Lithium hangover for Mark Creasy’s Yandal Investments with profit slumping from $107m to under $20m

The main investment vehicle of legendary prospector Mark Creasy reported a sharp drop in profit after a huge lithium windfall in 2023.

Yandal Investments generated a net profit of $19.8 million for the 2025 financial year, down from $106.9m for the 12-month period prior. The value of Yandal’s shares in listed and unlisted companies fell from $822m to $336m.

The bumper 2024 financial year result was buoyed by Mr Creasy cashing out of Azure Minerals at the top of the market via a $1.7 billion acquisition by Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting and Chilean giant SQM in late 2023.

Yandal sold its 12.8 per cent stake in Azure into the takeover at a price of $3.70 per share for a $220m payout.

Azure held 60 per cent of the Andover lithium and nickel-copper-cobalt project in the Pilbara, with Yandal controlling the remaining 40 per cent.

Backed by the Azure gain, Mr Creasy has been busy on the deal-making front so far in 2025.

CZR Resources’ 85 per cent stake in the Robe Mesa iron ore project was caught in a takeover tussle between Fenix Resources, Gold Valley Group and a Rio Tinto joint venture with Japan’s Mitsui and Nippon Steel.

CZR is majority-owned by Mr Creasy, and the billionaire also owns the remaining 15 per cent in the project.

Fenix made the first move for CZR in February after the Foreign Investment Review Board stonewalled Chinese-linked Miracle Iron from acquiring the iron ore junior. The Rio JV eventually scooped up CZR’s Robe Mesa holding for $75m.

Mr Creasy last month won the battle to rescue collapsed gold miner Calidus Resources and is eyeing a similar deal to revive Wiluna Mining — another collapsed gold miner — as bullion hovers around record levels.