Heat building on Havilah

Board in peril from mooted shareholder revolt

HAVILAH Resources shareholders could be asked to vote on removing two board members at an extraordinary general meeting in February, after a demand from disgruntled stock owners including founder Bob Johnson.

The Adelaide company is scheduled to hold a meeting on February 4 to vote on whether to remove Mark Stewart and Kenneth Williams as directors.

But while two alternative directors have been proposed – Dr Johnson’s son Peter, who is chief executive of Adelaide mining technology form Maptek, and Richard Buckley – Havilah said they didn’t have their paperwork in order and therefore could not stand for election.

The meeting may not happen, however, with technical director Chris Giles saying discussions are under way to resolve the issue.

Dr Giles said the shareholders who had asked for the meeting to be called “had a point” and the board was involved with “good faith discussions’’ around how to progress in the best interests of all shareholders.

A members’ statement published as part of the ASX notice of meeting details a list of complaints against the current board, including that the share price has “remained essentially unchanged” over the past year, that there have been no additions to the company’s mineral resources since 2012, and that “management has failed on numerous occasions to meet its stated objectives and timelines from its ... ‘2018 business plan scorecard’ ’’.

The current board of Havilah has recommended shareholders vote against the removal of both directors.

Regarding the letter published on the ASX, the company said: “the directors in no way endorse the statement and simply provide it in the form in which it was provided to the company as is required by the Corporation Act’’.

Dr Johnson was chairman of Havilah until 2013, when he left the company.

This followed a previous attempt to roll the board by institutional investors Rockland and Gregorach.

While his name is not mentioned in the letter Havilah has posted to the ASX, Dr Johnson confirmed he was one of the shareholders involved.

The Havilah annual report lists him as owning 0.8 per cent of the company, which counts Kalkaroo in South Australia (pictured) among its projects.

Havilah shares are in a trading halt until a clarifying statement about comments made on social media is issued by the company. They last traded at 15.5c, valuing it at $33.8 million.