Three Capricorn Metals directors have been replaced following a shareholder vote led by Neon Capital and Nero Resource Fund.
Neon’s Tim Kestall and Nero’s Douglas Jendry replaced non-executive chair Debra Bakker and non-executive directors Geoffrey Rogers and Peter Benjamin. The only director not affected was Stuart Pether, who had previously expressed a preference that the board not be changed.
Following the result of the vote, managing director and chief executive officer Warren Hallam and chief financial officer Jonathan Shellabear chose to resign.
Hallam had only been at the company for one month, having previously worked in the same capacity at Metals X for nearly 15 years.
Neon and Nero collectively own about 5.5 per cent of Capricorn’s shares. The board had previously warned against their appointment, stating that it carried “significant uncertainty for shareholders” and that Kestall and Jendry had been involved in “proxy fights” for board control on multiple occasions.
Capricorn’s primary project is the Karlawinda gold project in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, which ha suffered delays.
The project secured a $107 million funding package in December last year from Macquarie Bank that is expected to provide a boost for the project.
Capricorn expects to produce an average of almost 97,000 ounces a year at Karlawinda over an 8.5-year mine life. Production is set to start in the June quarter of 2019.