hegarty denied golden handshake

Oxiana founder and chief executive Owen Hegarty has been denied his $10.6 million termination payment, after proxy votes lined up against the resolution as a protest against the firm's tumbling share price.

Although 63 per cent of all shareholders voted in favour of the payout, 57.4 per cent of proxies, representing a range of institutional shareholders, rejected the massive golden handshake.

Final proxies saw just 575 million votes in favour of Mr Hegarty's remuneration package and 776 million against.

Mr Hegarty is due to leave Oxiana after its $4.2 billion merger with zinc and lead miner Zinifex was announced last month.

Oxiana shares on Friday sunk to a low of $1.95 - its worst level since hitting $1.89 in March 2006, before ending at $1.96 or down nine cents or 4.39 per cent.

Chairman Barry Cusack sought to reassure shareholders on the share price decline and shake the unflattering "zinc company" tag, amid faltering prices for the commodity.

He expressed concern that the decline in the Oxiana's share price did not represent the underlying value of the company and conceded that shareholders had been "impacted by the decline".

Oxiana shares hit a 12-month high of $4.32 in November, prior to the merger was announced in March. Zinifex was delisted from the stock exchange earlier this month

Also of interest at the meeting was the small margin by which WA News chairman Peter Mansell was re-elected to the board after shareholders became critical of his position on five different public company's boards.

Name change

Shareholders gathered in Melbourne to change the name of the merged group to OZ Minerals and vote on the termination payment to Mr Hegarty, who had led Oxiana since 1994.

OZ Minerals provided a bullish outlook for its core commodities but attempted to distance itself from the zinc company tag amid sinking prices for the commodity.

The company has emerged from a $4.2 billion merger between copper and gold miner Oxiana Ltd and zinc and lead producer Zinifex Ltd.

OZ Minerals will be the world's second largest zinc producer and have significant exposure to copper, lead, gold, silver and nickel, with four operations in Australia and Asia.

"Some commentators say that OZ Minerals is a zinc company. Well, it's not," chairman Barry Cusack told a meeting of shareholders in Melbourne on Friday.

"Copper is a core commodity for OZ Minerals ... (and) will contribute more of our revenue than zinc once Prominent Hill comes on stream at the end of year, significantly more."

The $1 billion Prominent Hill project in South Australia will start first production later this year and ramp up to a rate of 100,000 tonnes of copper and 80,000 ounces of gold a year.

Falling zinc prices have brought a halt to the development of AIM Resources Ltd's Perkoa mine in Africa and brought about the premature closure of the Xstrata and Teck Cominco's Lennard Shelf operation in Western Australia.

The falling zinc price also contributed to the breakdown of merger plans between junior miners Perilya Ltd and CBH Resources Ltd.

Mr Cusack said the drop in the zinc price was "inconsistent with underlying demand" and the outlook for the metal was "strong", with most analysts estimating the commodity would be in deficit by 2010 to 2011.

OZ Minerals chief executive Andrew Michelmore painted a bullish outlook for copper and gold and said zinc would remain "a key part of the commodity mix".

Mr Michelmore, the former Zinifex boss, said the merged company would pursue aggressively "large-scale opportunities" in the resources sector to further diversify its operations.