The call came through from Oz Minerals on Friday that chairman Barry Cusack would like to engage. It's amazing how lobbing a board nomination can change communications.
It will probably be a private conversation but I'm expecting one issue will be the content of the platform to be distributed to shareholders given the latest MinMetals deal from last week.
The current platform reads as follows:
Mr Mayne is standing for the Oz Minerals board as a catalyst for change. There needs to be more boardroom accountability for the company's precarious financial position and the decision last year to ignore an overwhelming shareholder vote and award an $8.3 million separation payment to former Oxiana Resources managing director Owen Hegarty.
Given that the MinMetals deal will likely lead to a dramatically smaller company left with Prominent Hill, Martabe and about $450 million of net cash, perhaps a revised platform with the following would be more suitable:
Mr Mayne is standing for the Oz Minerals board as a catalyst for change. There needs to be more boardroom accountability for the destruction of shareholder value and the decision last year to ignore an overwhelming shareholder vote and award an $8.3 million separation payment to former Oxiana Resources managing director Owen Hegarty.
That said, the Oz Minerals debacle of the past six months really is an indictment of the Australian banking cartel. Here was a company which was clearly solvent all the way through, yet the banks were poised with the axe since this shock announcement about refinancing battles on November 25.
We're told that it was two recalcitrant French banks which caused all the grief. In that case, the Big Four Australian banks should have just stepped up and taken them out to stabilise our third biggest mining company.
Instead, the majority of the Oz Minerals assets will disappear into the belly of the Chinese Government and Australia's woeful record on foreign ownership of our resources dowry will just get a whole lot worse.
ANZ is particularly guilty given it ran that huge advertising campaign a few years ago trumpeting how it supported emerging corporate clients such as Oxiana Resources. When it came to the crunch, ANZ wasn't able to round up enough financial support to prevent a Chinese fire-sale.
R/Rob.
OZL Price at posting:
$6.05 Sentiment: Hold Disclosure: Held
