However, stocks early on yesterday were very thinly traded with only 3560 shares changing hands in three trades.
The securities issued yesterday on the ASX are CHESS Depositary Interests (CDIs) which gives Australian investors access to the company’s stocks on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
Already listed on the TSX, Waratah plans to spend $5.3 billion developing a new 25 million tonne per annum coal mine, 500km of rail and a new port in the Galilee Basin in Queensland.
Waratah said the project would be one of the largest thermal coal projects in Australia.
Today’s listing will broaden Waratah’s investor base and add to the company's options for attracting corporate and project funding, according to Waratah chief executive Peter Lynch.
Since announcing the ambitious project Waratah has been the subject of a federal government knock-back and a hostile takeover.
Waratah had originally proposed to locate its port at Shoalwater Bay, north of Rockhampton, but Australian Environment Minister Peter Garrett and the Queensland government rejected the plans saying the proposal was environmentally unsound.
Lynch responded in September stating the company’s proposal had not been properly considered or its impacts properly assessed.
Waratah is also the focus of a hostile takeover attempt by Clive Palmer’s Mineralogy, which has launched a bid to lift its 14% stake to a controlling 50.1% share in Waratah.
Mineralogy has offered $C1.41 cash per share, or $C38.37 million (about $A48 million) for the majority stake.
Waratah has continued to recommend its shareholders reject the offer which ends December 3, labelling the bid “inadequate”
Waratah said last week higher bids could be on the horizon as it enters discussions with a “number of interested parties”
“We are encouraged by the level of interest and have established a data room for the purpose of providing confidential information to interested third parties, and several parties are already accessing the data room,” Waratah special committee chairman Howard Stack said last Monday.
