First Lithium Minerals Opens a Third Financing in Four Months at a Price Above Its Own Close

First Lithium Minerals Corp. announced on September 16, 2026 that it had begun a new private placement under the listed issuer financing exemption. It is the third such offering the company has opened since 25 May. The first two were also for up to C$6 million, and neither reached it.

That sequence, rather than the size of any one raise, is the useful fact. A company that keeps reopening the same round at the same price is telling the market something about demand, and the terms it is now offering say the rest.

The price sits above the market, and the warrant is doing the persuading

The offering has two parts. Up to 35,500,000 non-flow-through units are on offer at C$0.11 each, and up to 2,333,333 flow-through units at C$0.15. A concurrent private placement of up to 6,772,727 units at C$0.11 runs alongside it, subject to a four-month resale hold. Every unit carries one share and half a share-purchase warrant exercisable at C$0.18 for three years, starting 60 days after closing. The company expects to close on or about September 29, 2026, and is paying finders cash and warrants equal to 8 per cent of gross proceeds, reduced to 4 per cent on up to C$2 million placed through the president's list.

A flow-through share is a Canadian instrument that passes the company's exploration tax deductions to the buyer, which is why it prices higher than an ordinary share: the buyer is paying partly for the deduction. That is the whole reason the same company can sell one share at C$0.15 and another at C$0.11 on the same morning.

On September 17, 2026 the shares closed at C$0.10 on the Canadian Securities Exchange, up half a cent or 5.3 per cent, on 85,135 shares against a 30-day average of 25,354, with a volume-weighted average price of C$0.0952 (secondary market data read after the close, 15-minute delayed, not verified against SEDAR+ filings). So the non-flow-through unit is priced a cent above where the stock finished the day. The buyer is not paying for the share. The buyer is paying for the share plus the right to buy a second one at C$0.18 for three years, and deciding that combination is worth C$0.11.

What the last round of exactly this shape produced

The offering opened on July 9, 2026 was also for up to C$6 million, on the same C$0.11 and C$0.15 unit prices with the same half-warrant at C$0.18. On 22 July the company announced a first tranche: 8,865,000 non-flow-through units and 975,000 flow-through units for gross proceeds of C$1,121,400, plus C$660,548 from the concurrent private placement. Finders were paid C$89,712 in cash and 787,200 warrants on the listed portion, and C$40,843.28 and 371,303 warrants on the placement. The company said it would keep trying to fully subscribe the offering.

C$1,781,948 against a C$6 million target is 30 per cent of the round. No second tranche was announced before the September offering opened.

The July offering document, filed on SEDAR+ on July 9, 2026, is blunt about the position that money was filling. It put estimated working capital at June 30, 2026 at C$100,000. It disclosed that the most recent audited annual statements and interim report both carried a going-concern note, that the company has generated negative operating cash flow since inception, and that the offering was not expected to change the going-concern conclusion in the next annual statements.

A going-concern note is the auditor's formal statement that there is material uncertainty about whether the business can keep operating for another year without new money. It is a common feature of exploration-stage filings and it is not an accusation. It does mean the financing calendar, not the drill calendar, sets the pace.

Market data for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2025 shows C$717,301 of cash against C$635,300 of liabilities, a gap of about C$82,000. That is a secondary feed rather than the filed statements, and it points the same way as the company's own figure.

Fully subscribed, the offering hands over 28 per cent of the company

The Canadian Securities Exchange's own listing record showed 112,225,268 shares outstanding and a further 21,099,242 reserved for issuance when it was read on September 17, 2026. That share count matters, because the widely quoted market-data figure is 96,380,000 and produces a market value of C$9.64 million. The difference is about 15.8 million shares, which is almost exactly what the July tranche issued. The exchange's record has caught up and the data feed has not.

Gross proceeds at full subscription are about C$5.0 million: C$3,905,000 from the non-flow-through units, C$350,000 from the flow-through units and C$745,000 from the concurrent placement. The listed portion alone comes to C$4,255,000.

The flow-through money is going to Ontario gold, not Chilean brine

The use of proceeds separates cleanly along the tax line. An amount equal to the gross proceeds from the flow-through units is committed to eligible Canadian exploration expenses at the Lidstone gold project in northwestern Ontario, because flow-through deductions only arise on Canadian ground. Proceeds from the non-flow-through units go to exploration drilling and brine sampling at the Ascotán lithium project in Chile, and to working capital.

So the Chilean programme is funded out of the C$0.11 units and whatever is left after the company's costs, not out of the headline total. On August 26, 2026 First Lithium staked 900 hectares of new concessions at Ascotán, taking that project to about 6,400 hectares in the Antofagasta Region, and said it expects to begin a 1,500-metre drilling programme during the 2026/27 exploration season, subject to capital, government permits, licences and community agreements. The brine sampling behind that plan returned lithium in solution ranging from 93.5 to 1,299.5 milligrams per litre. The company stated those samples are selective and may not represent the deposit as a whole, which is the correct qualification: a brine sample measures the water at the point it was taken, not the volume or grade of any body of brine underneath.

Robert Saltsman is President and Chief Executive Officer and Claude Ayache is Chief Financial Officer, per the exchange's listing record read on September 17, 2026. Aldo Moreno Salinas, Vice-President of Exploration, is the qualified person under National Instrument 43-101 named in the August release.

Frankfurt lists the shares and did not trade them

First Lithium's German line is real and identifiable: ISIN CA32072L1094, WKN A3DQXP, Frankfurt symbol X28, per Deutsche Börse's own instrument page read on September 17, 2026. The company's wire boilerplate carries the same symbol.

What that page also showed is the part that changes the calculation for anyone working from a German account. Turnover on September 17, 2026 was €0 on zero shares, from three price fixings. The last price was €0.049, down 5.77 per cent, against a previous closing price of €0.052. The quoted bid was €0.0445 and the ask €0.081, a spread of €0.0365, or 82 per cent of the bid.

At the Bank of Canada's daily rate of C$1.6073 to the euro on September 16, 2026, €0.049 is about C$0.079, roughly a fifth below the C$0.10 Canadian close. That gap is not an arbitrage. It is what a price looks like when it is set by three fixings and no volume, quoted on an 82 per cent spread. The listing gives a German account a route to the security; on this evidence it does not give it a market.

The number that decides whether any of this matters is 1,500

Everything above is about funding. The thing being funded is a 1,500-metre drill programme on a salar where the company has so far reported selective brine samples and no drill hole. Brine sampling finds lithium in water at surface. Drilling is what establishes whether there is a body of brine with thickness, porosity and continuity, and it is the first work at Ascotán capable of doing that.

The company has not published a mineral resource estimate for Ascotán, and none of the figures reported to date supports one. The money now being raised is the money that buys the first real test, which is why the size of the tranche that actually closes matters more than the size of the offering that was announced. C$1.78 million bought the last round. A 1,500-metre programme in the Atacama, with permits and community agreements still to obtain, is not obviously a C$1.78 million undertaking.

Three offerings, one tranche, and a drill that has not turned. The next filing that changes the picture is a closing announcement with a number in it.

Transparency note. This is an independent due-diligence analysis and editorial opinion piece produced by The Maple Markets editorial desk. It is not sponsored, promoted or commissioned, and no compensation of any kind has been received from First Lithium Minerals Corp. (CSE: FLM) or any party acting on their behalf. The analysis is based on public disclosure available as of the publish date; every figure is attributed to its primary source. The Maple Markets and its authors may hold positions in securities mentioned; nothing here is a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any security, and readers should not treat it as investment advice. Past disclosure does not guarantee future results. Policies: Editorial Standards · Financial Disclaimer.