From the Sudbury Mining Solutions Journal:
Dissident shareholders bid for control of Zenyatta Ventures
April 24, 2018
by NORM TOLLINSKY
In: FEATURED, NEWS
A group of dissident shareholders of Zenyatta Ventures has entered into a proxy battle to unseat four of the six current directors of the company, including its president and CEO Aubrey Eveleigh.
A group of dissident shareholders of Zenyatta Ventures has entered into a proxy battle to unseat four of the six current directors of the company, including its president and CEO Aubrey Eveleigh.
The Thunder Bay-based exploration company owns the high-purity Albany graphite project near Hearst.
Tired of waiting for the management and current board of Zenyatta Ventures to advance the project, the dissident shareholders are seeking to replace Barry Allan, Sean Whiteford, Keith Morrison and Eveleigh with Francis Dubé, Brian Bosse and Eric Wallman at a special meeting in Toronto May 11th.
The slide in the company’s share price from a high of $4.87 in July 2013 to a low of 0.42 cents April 20th “is a pretty good indication of the performance of the current board of directors and management,” said Dubé, an optometrist who invested in the company in 2012.
In two consecutive years – 2012 and 2013 – Zenyatta received the award for the top performing mining company on the TSX Venture Exchange, but it has been all downhill from there.
Dubé was attracted to Zenyatta because of the high purity of its graphite deposit and its potential to cash in on the lithium ion battery market. Since then, he said, “the story has only gotten better. Now, it’s really a graphene play.”
Discovered in 2004, graphene is a thin flake of carbon just one atom thick. Unique because of its strength and ability to conduct heat, it can be infused in concrete, plastic, aluminum, resins and rubber to make them stronger, lighter, and both thermally and electrically conductive. According to Dubé, it’s worth between $1,200 and $6,000 an ounce.
Albany material exfoliates into graphene more easily than most graphite because of its purity.
The languishing share price, unmet milestones and the failure of management and board members to respond to shareholder questions on several occasions led the dissidents to take action, said Dubé.
Eveleigh finally agreed to a conference call, “but was one hour late and the first thing he said to us was ‘I have 15 minutes for you guys,’ and proceeded not to answer any of our questions. He said he would get back to us. That was three months ago.”
A preliminary economic assessment promised by Q1 2014 came out in June 2015, and an environmental assessment and geotechnical drilling was supposed to start in the fall of 2017. “Here we are eight months later, nothing has been done and the company is essentially broke,” said Dubé. “They’ve bled the coffers dry and they haven’t moved the project forward.”
Dubé is confident that the company will be able to attract new financing under different direction.
“Since we started this movement to replace them, we’ve been approached by a few large shareholders, several brokerage houses and a company in Europe that are all interested in funding Zenyatta as long as there’s a new board.”
In a press release issued April 17th, Zenyatta announced that Eveleigh will be stepping down from his role as CEO, but will remain as interim president and director “to facilitate an orderly transfer of knowledge” as the company seeks a new CEO.
The release also announced that Eveleigh would be paid a $450,000 severance for stepping down as CEO, that he would continue to be paid his full salary of $225,000 as interim president and that he would be eligible for a further $450,000 severance if he is terminated or voluntarily abandons his role as president.
Eveleigh did not respond to a request for a comment or interview.
sudburyminingsolutions.com
Francis Dubé for the ZENforward.ca team |
