15 January 2024

Zinnwald Lithium plc

("Zinnwald Lithium" or the "Company")

Issuance of Share Incentive Awards and Vesting of RSUs

Zinnwald Lithium plc (AIM: ZNWD), the German focussed lithium development company, announces the grant of a total of 4,228,475 Restricted Share Units ("RSUs") and 4,350,000 Options under the Company's Long-Term Incentive Plans relating to performance in 2023, and a total of 4,500,000 Performance Share Units ("PSUs") relating to performance from 1 October 2020 to 31 December 2023.  The Company also announces the issuance of 1,012,051 new shares in relation to the vesting of RSUs granted in January 2022.

The RSUs being granted to Executive Management under the terms of the RSU Scheme, approved by shareholders in October 2020, relate to the performance period that ran from 1 January 2023 to 31 December 2023.   The RSUs will vest two years from the date of grant, being 15 January 2026, and the related shares (or cash alternative at the Company's discretion) will be issued on that date.  The RSUs are being granted to Executive Management on the following basis:

The Options have been granted to employees, consultants and Directors under the terms of the Scheme put in place at the time of the Company's original IPO in 2017. These Options to acquire ordinary shares in the capital of the Company have been granted at a price of 6.75p being the price at close on 12 January 2024.  Such options vest as to 1/3 on the date of grant and an additional 1/3 on each of the first and second anniversaries of the date of grant and are exercisable for a period of five years. The Options are being granted on the following basis:

The PSUs being granted to Executive Management under the terms of the PSU Scheme, approved by shareholders in October 2020, relate to the performance period that ran from 1 October 2020 to 31 December 2023.   The PSUs will vest two years from the date of grant, being 15 January 2026.  The PSUs are being granted to Executive Management on the following basis:

Issue of Equity & Total Voting Rights 

The first tranche of 1,909,531 RSUs originally issued in January 2022 have now reached their vesting date, and in accordance with the rules of the scheme will vest at a price of 7.11p being the 20 Day VWAP price at close on 12 January 2024.  At its discretion, the Board has elected to pay the net amount due after tax under these awards in shares rather than cash.  Accordingly, 691,782 shares will be issued to Anton du Plessis and 320,269 shares will be issued to Cherif Rifaat.

Application has been made for the 1,012,051 new ordinary shares to be admitted to trading on AIM ("Admission").  Admission is expected to occur on or around 18 January 2024.  These new ordinary shares will rank pari passu with the existing ordinary shares in issue. Following admission of the new ordinary shares, there will be 474,536,675 ordinary shares in issue.  This number may be used by shareholders in the Company as the denominator for the calculations by which they will determine if they are required to notify their interest in, or a change in their interest in, the share capital of the Company. 

On issuance of the Incentive awards and vesting of RSUs, the total number of RSUs in issue will be 7,635,254, the total number of Options will be 11,000,000 and the total number of PSUs will be 4,500,000. 

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Notes

Zinnwald Lithium plc (EPIC: ZNWD.L) is an AIM quoted, German focused lithium development company focussed on becoming an important supplier to Europe's fast-growing battery sector. The Company owns the Zinnwald Lithium Project in Germany, an advanced development project with attractive economics and approved mining licence.  Its PEA, published in September 2022 highlighted the positive economics of the Project with a Pre-tax NPV8 of US$1,605m, IRR of 39.0%, $192m EBITDA and a payback of just 3.3 years.  The Project is located in the heart of Europe's chemical and automotive industries and has the potential to be one of Europe's more advanced battery grade lithium projects.