In a move quite a long time in the making, Sayona Mining (ASX:SYA) and Piedmont Lithium (ASX:PLL) have finally agreed on an $850 million green handshake to team up in a high-profile lithium merger.

The deal, first reported by the AFR as the two ASX-listed companys pulled the brakes on trading on November 19, is more a formality than anything else.

Sayona and Piedmont have already been closely-linked venture partners at the North American Lithium (NAL) project in Quebec since as far back as mid-2021 and Piedmont owns a 25% equity interest in Sayona Quebec to boot.

(Piedmont did sell off its Australian shares in Sayona earlier this year though.)

November’s all-stock merger will now see the lithium teamup control the NAL project in Quebec’s Abitibi region (which is basically business as usual) as well as several projects spread across Ghana, Quebec, Tennessee, and North Carolina.

The combined entity is now looking to raise around $150 million, the Financial Review has suggested, with a strategic investor expected to cover half that injection.

This deal may go some way to halting Sayona’s seemingly unstoppable price slide – shares in the miner have slumped 52% since this time last year.

Nothing’s moved yet, of course, with both companies now in a trading pause.

There’s certainly a mine-sized pile of interest in what happens next on HotCopper though, with Sayona quickly becoming the most talked about stock on the forums through to 11.43am AEDT on Tuesday. More than 40,000 HotCopper users have already checked in across two forum threads that boast 150-plus comments.

Most users – once it was puzzled out that the halt was most likely due to the merger – seemed optimistic (if quite cautious) about the possibilities.

Sayona‘s indicative price has dropped 2.63% since the report released.

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