Resource group Mwana Africa’s two of the four independent non-executive directors who were facing a vote at the company’s extraordinary general meeting next week have resigned with immediate effect, the company said on Friday.
Interim non-executive chairman, Stuart Morris and Johan Botha, both South Africans, had indicated their desire to quit the board ahead of the EGM instigated by activist minority shareholders calling themselves the ‘Concerned Shareholders Group.’
The activist shareholder group, led by Ian Dearing and others holding about 5,1 percent of Mwana’s issued share capital, requisitioned for the EGM on June 9 to, among other resolutions, remove Morris, Botha, and Zimbabweans Ngoni Kudenga and Herbert Mashanyare and replace them with Scott Morrison, Mark Wellesley-Wood, Oliver Barbeau and Anne-Marie Chidzero.
“Further to the announcement made by the Company on 12 May 2015 Mr Stuart Morris, Interim Non-Executive Chairman, and Johan Botha, Non-Executive Director, advised the Company today of their retirement as directors of the Company with immediate effect,” said Mwana Africa in a statement on its website.
The company also announced that effective Friday, the CIMGC, a substantial shareholder in Mwana and Yat Hoi Ning, a non-executive director and associate of CIMGC had agreed to the withdrawal of Morris and Botha from their court petition. The Chinese shareholders have a court petition seeking the ouster of the pair along with a couple of Zimbabwean directors.
“The succession plan for additional independent non-Executive Directors, including the Chairman of the Company, is currently being discussed by the Board,” said the company.
Chief executive, Kalaa Mpinga said both “Stuart and Johan have always acted in the Company’s best interests and I wish them both well in their future endeavours.”
Mpinga, earlier this week attacked a requisition by minority shareholders of the company who were seeking to remove four independent non-executive directors of the company at the forthcoming EGM as an unnecessary distraction.