COPPERMOLY AVOIDS SHAREHOLDER SHOWDOWN

COPPERMOLY has avoided a possible ugly showdown over board positions after bowing to an appointment demand from a group of unhappy shareholders.

The Gold Coast-listed junior explorer (ASX: COY) received notice from a consortium of six major shareholders on July 12 seeking an extraordinary general meeting. The shareholders threatened to pursue the removal of Maurice Gannon and Ben Michael Faulkner as directors of the company.

The group also wanted Shawn Uldridge appointed as a non-executive director.

The board today unanimously agreed to appoint Uldridge. The shareholder group subsequently withdrew its other demands.

“Following very constructive discussions with the board, the requisitioning shareholders have today unequivocally and irrevocably withdrawn the notice that was provided to the company,” says a Coppermoly statement today.

Uldridge holds a bachelor of business from the University of Queensland and has 12 years’ financial markets experience, eight of which have been in the financial advisory and investment management industry.

He co-founded William Shaw Securities in 2006, prior to which he worked with a boutique stock broking firm based in Sydney.

He says the board listened to, and accepted his concerns when they were discussed and he is confident in the agreements which have been made.

“I am pleased that a constructive outcome was able to be achieved and I very much look forward to working with the board of Coppermoly to future success,” says Uldridge.

Gannon says new lines of communication have opened to benefit the company.

“The outcome is very much a positive one and I am looking forward to making the business decisions needed to secure the company’s long-term future,” says Gannon.

The shareholders who backed Uldridge include: Rising Bird Investments; John Francis Rebbechi; William Stanley Yeaman; Simon William Tritton; New Guinea Gold Corporation; Shawn Uldridge and Kimberly Lowery.

New Guinea Gold is Coppermoly’s largest shareholder while four of the other signatories are listed in the top 20.

Uldridge’s appointment comes four days after Coppermoly announced its maiden inferred resource under the JORC (Australasian Joint Ore Reserves Committee) Code at its Nakru-1 tenement in Papua New Guinea, independently verified by Golder Associates.