News

August 07, 2008

Mintails Is Now Only A Few Months Away From Becoming A Significant Gold Producer

By Charles Wyatt

It looks as if all is sweetness and light once again at ASX-listed Mintails, which is just as well in current market conditions. From a distance the kerfuffle looks a bit like the usual bit of niggle in a Wallabies/Springboks scrum as the directors who came under fire were both from Australia and the dissidents appeared to be South African. The essence of the argument appeared to be that a man called Pat Smyth, who claimed to have around 40 per cent of the Mintails votes behind him, wanted executive chairman Bryan Frost and non-executive director Richard Rivelins to step down from the board in favour of a couple of his appointees. But Bryan Frost found it difficult to confirm how this shareholding had been assembled as there was no evidence that South Africans held many shares. The only conclusion appeared to be that it might hinge on Peter Skeat of Skeat Gold Mining, which was acquired by Mintails some time ago. He was certainly known to be a critic of the leadership.

There was also the matter of board changes which seemed to be rather more frequent than is usual. In January Bernard Swanepoel became a director, which was a strong move in view of his amazing record as chief executive of Harmony Gold. He was followed in April by Basie Maree and it was a shrewd move to bring him on board as an executive too. Basie Marie was head of metallurgy for all AngloGold Ashanti’s operations in Africa. He also has a background as South Africa’s representative on the...