jervois article in today's age

an extract of the article which appeared in today's AGE:

(I found it by typing Jevois Mining into GOOGLE NEWS - it is on the business section of THE AGE online)

What goes on behind closed boardroom doors

THE AGE 9/1/09
Jervois, a would-be nickel miner, made an extraordinary announcement on Christmas Eve. Managing director Duncan Pursell, who said he was responding to an "informal query" from the ASX's Adelaide office over something apparently unrelated, went on to detail a nasty spat.
He revealed that fellow directors Melanie Leydin and Richard Campbell had called on December 17 for a board meeting to consider a requisition from shareholders for a meeting to remove Pursell and Malcolm Jansen.
The idea was to bring in Sydney-based mining entrepreneur Norm Seckold, already Jervois' largest shareholder, with about 6 per cent — and better known as the man who did get his money out of Opes Prime — and his colleague Peter Nightingale.
Pursell reckoned his legal advice was that the requisition was deficient, but the board still met on December 22 to consider it. Neither Leydin nor Campbell turned up.
Other, as yet unrevealed, resolutions were passed in their absence, but that same day Leydin and Campbell persuaded Justice Ray Finkelstein to grant an injunction preventing Jervois' board from implementing resolutions passed on either December 22 or December 12. Leydin, who is a well-respected company secretary for several groups, quit the board on December 29.
Jervois also has another potential $US1 million court case over a dispute with a Chinese partner.
Pursell has since announced a 1-for-5 rights issue at 0.4¢ a share to raise $1.7 million — in the unlikely event everyone takes it up. Jervois is believed to have about six months' worth of money left at current company cash-burn rates
A number of existing shareholders seem to be very grumpy about the dilutive effects of the issue, especially given Jervois already has 2.1 billion shares on issue, and a market worth of just $15 million, and this would add more than 400 million shares.
(Historic footnote: Lancelot was, sadly, around 20 years ago when Pursell took control at Jervois after Ian Sykes, the man whose XL Petroleum is credited with giving Melburnians cheaper fuel for their cars, had to sell when he predicted the market would collapse and it didn't. Back then Jervois' market worth was $3 million with 40 million shares.)
The chatter on the HotCopper forum, apart from being dominated by a pro-Seckold group using "jervoisvision2009" as its banner, suggests Jervois has more than one member of the Pursell family on the books — which may be influencing decisions about how to cut operating costs.
Pursell could consider taking a leaf from the book of the company's namesake, former South Australian governor Sir William Jervois — a royal engineer not only jointly responsible for the defence plans used in Australia until early last century, but who also worked on the defences of South Africa, Canada and London.
For London he proposed a ring of defensive forts. Lancelot thinks Pursell might want to hunt up those plans.
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