This was in the Mining Journal, page 14, dated the 12th of...

This was in the Mining Journal, page 14, dated the 12th of December.

It was meant to be posted up on EXT website today, but I thought some of you may have missed it with the mess up of the systme.

A great read. Good to see some Media saying exactly what we are all saying. Always give it more pull

Harlee


Perthbased
Extract Resources. A merger with Kalahari
Minerals was mooted but fell apart in November
after Rio Tinto acquired substantial holdings in both
companies – Extract’s prime asset, the Rossing South
project, borders Rio’s Rossing uranium mine. Some
major Kalahari shareholders vetoed the merger, fearing
it would hand control to Rio.
Now Kalahari wants to remove Mr Buchan as
chairman of Extract, in which it owns a 39% stake.
On Monday this week, Kalahari said it wanted Extract
to call a special meeting to vote Mr Buchan off the
board because he refused to go peacefully.
Mr Buchan says if the Kalahari-Extract merger had
gone through he would have stepped down. But, “Kalahari
now wants to get control of the [Extract] board
and the company without a merger, which management
and the independent directors are resisting”.
Obviously, his role at Extract is no sinecure either and
the battle with Kalahari will need his attention for a
month or two more at least.
Mr Buchan, now 61, was born in Scotland but is
now a Canadian citizen. He graduated from Herriot-
Watt University in Edinburgh in 1969 with a degree
in mining engineering. He gained his Masters
in Mineral Economics at Queen’s University in
Kingston, Ontario. He was a mining analyst in
the early part of his career and then took part
in the formation of CMP Funds Management,
which, from 1984 to 1990, raised more
than US$1 billion for the Canadian resource
industry.
In 1987, he helped create associated
companies DCC Equities, a resources-focused
merchant bank where he was president, and
Dundee Capital, a financial services company,
of which he was vice-chairman. He stresses
that through all these changes “my entire career
was focused on the mining sector – that’s what
I know about”.
Mr Buchan says he set up Kinross in 1993 because
“having been around the sector as an analyst
and financier for some time, I was fairly confident I
could run a gold company myself”.
When he left Kinross he said he was young
enough to build another mining company. He
achieved this with Katanga Mining Ltd which had
copper and cobalt projects in the Democratic