One-third of investors in a uranium exploration and mining...

One-third of investors in a uranium exploration and mining company rejected plans to give Warren Mundine and other directors “loan funded shares” worth more than $2 million — but the lucrative remuneration was approved anyway.Company filings for Aura Energy show just 65.7 per cent of shareholders approved the issue of 22 million “loan funded shares” to Mundine and four other directors last November, with 34 per cent opposed.The company’s $2.47m in “share-based payments” to “directors, executives and senior consultants” were a “primary driver” of its $6.8m loss in the year, which was double its loss of $3.4m the year before, the company’s audited accounts state.Mundine — who along with Senator Jacinta Price was the face of the “No” campaign against the Indigenous Voice to parliament, railing against the “elite” — is one of three directors on the company’s “remuneration committee”.If 25 per cent or more of shareholders reject the annual “remuneration report” overall — rather than payments regarding individual directors — twice in a row, then a vote must be put to shareholders on whether to spill the board.Resolutions regarding payments to individual directors only need a “simple majority” of 50 per cent or more to pass.(At the last year’s meeting 14.7 per cent voted against the remuneration report overall. The next AGM will be held in two weeks, on November 29.)It has also emerged Aura Energy previously broke listing rules by issuing too many shares and was banned by the ASX, from October 2020 until June 30 2022, from issuing new shares or other securities without “prior security holder approval”.Aura Energy’s annual report, released last week, shows the “share-based payments” to “key management personnel” have caught the eye of its auditor Hall Chadwick, which flagged them as one of two “key audit matters”.That was because of the “significance of the transactions” to the company’s “financial position and performance”, the company’s auditor said.