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PESKY NOISE

The chairman of Compass Resources, Gordon Toll, could soon have some difficulty hearing any protesting shareholders outside his six-storey Queen Anne-styled terrace in the upmarket Mayfair district of London.

Toll recently applied to the City of Westminster to install double-glazed windows at the front and rear of the red-brick property.

The former Fortescue Metals chairman, however, has scaled back his original plan to install a 2.8-metre-high ''glass box'' over the roof of the terrace.

Today, the administrator Ferrier Hodgson will host a meeting where resolutions will be presented to Compass shareholders for Toll and the US hedge fund YA Global to be handed a 95 per cent stake in the explorer. This is in return for them cancelling $70-odd million of debt.

Under the deed of company arrangement, Toll and YA Global will be issued shares at 2.5 each. On the day that the company was tipped into voluntary administration last year, shareholders were about to vote on whether to grant Toll and YA shares at 42 each in order to erase the debt.

At least 100 unhappy Compass shareholders have signalled they will oppose the plan.

''According to a report by the ASX, many companies raised money from shareholders during the global financial crisis,'' said a recent letter from a group of investors calling themselves the Friends of Compass.

''While other companies were raising funds often to retire debt, Compass was racking it up. Being out of lockstep with the hundreds of other ASX-listed companies that raised funds from shareholders has left YA Global and the chairman in an ideal position to benefit from the failure of your company.''

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http://www.businessday.com.au/business/in-a-constant-state-of-excitement-20100616-ygeg.html