It could be the first time a word count has been used as the first line of defence against an attempted board spill.
The board of the manganese miner OM Holdings on Friday
rebuffed, on technical grounds, a requisition of meeting lodged by the
Ukrainian billionaire Gennady Bogolyubov's Consolidated Minerals (ConsMin).
According to the ASX-listed and Bermudan-domiciled OM, the requisition to install the former NSW Liberal Leader Peter Debnam and the investment banker Malcolm McComas on the company's board was ''technically not compliant'' with Bermudan law.
OM did not spell out why the requisition calling for a shareholder vote to dump its executive chairman Low Ngee Tong and director Tan Peng Chin was not compliant, but it appears it has something to do with the statement, according to OM, being 1321 words long.
STIRLING MAYDAY
The biotech that, in a space of one month in 2009, announced
the ''results of highly promising findings'' on a trial of its drug
Immunoxel on AIDS patients, the ''clinically demonstrated''
effectiveness of the drug in preventing swine flu, and another
breakthrough in treating drug-resistant tuberculosis, has been placed
into administration.
Stirling Products called in the corporate paramedics last Monday, less than three weeks after its managing director, Peter Boonen,
at a shareholder meeting described the recently completed financial
year as ''both a very successful year as well as a very difficult and
frustrating one''.
The company only last month continued to talk up its planned
listing on the London Alternative Investment Market (AIM), citing the
lack of love it received from Australian investors. ''It is a real pity,
that this value and opportunity is not reflected in our market in
Australia and that we clearly need to move to another market where our
industry business and assets can be compared to listed peers as well as
far better understood,'' moaned Boonen at the meeting.
The lack of love for Stirling became apparent this year when
it had to scale back plans to raise $6 million. In June, the newsletter Biotech Daily noted how the company wanted to raise 2.6 billion new shares on the London AIM.
Despite having low cash reserves at the end of the 2010
financial year ($254,000), Stirling still managed to make several
acquisitions such the $3.3 million purchase of a pathology business last
September and another business for $511,302.
The company never got around to welcoming Jeremy Cocks,
who it named as its its chief executive designate in May. In June, the
company said it had ''not proceeded with formalising the appointment''
of Cocks.
MR POPULAR
The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority's chairman, John Laker, has emerged as one of the most popular regulators in the land.
''A majority of respondents agree that APRA effectively
enforces its prudential requirements and believe that APRA has had a
positive impact on their industry,'' said the firm Australian Survey
Research, which undertook a survey of 563 APRA regulated-entities and
150 ''knowledgeable observers''.
''APRA's strengths are its staff's integrity and
professionalism, as well as the positive impact the enforcement of
prudential requirements has had on the industry and APRA's guidance
material,'' said the report. But is it necessarily a good thing for a
regulator to be admired by its subjects?
FOR ALL SEASONS
Any companies suffering a spiritual crisis of confidence
could always seek enlightenment from the Church of England, whose
Sydney's diocese continues to struggle financially.
The Dean at St Andrew's Cathedral, Phillip Jensen,
last week penned a sermon that possibly provided comfort not only to
some of his parishioners but also several underperforming stocks.
''The more we possess the less we value what we possess and
the more we are ourselves possessed by our possessions,'' reasoned
Jensen in his passage about the ''irony of affluence''.
Following the release of another lousy set of accounts for
the Anglican Diocese of Sydney, which reported a 71 per cent slump in
profits for 2010, Jensen noted how we can miss out on the many joys of
life if we are well off.
''Wealth removes the seasons from us and so reduces the rhythm of life and the joy of anticipation,'' he scribed.
''Seasonal fruit such as cherries, oranges and nectarines can be imported and delivered to us all year round.
''Our refrigerators and freezers can deliver whatever food we
wish without any reference to the season of growth.'' Looks like it
will be sometime yet before the Sydney Diocese will be stocking imported
cherries in its fridge.
The Diocese's Glebe Administration Board's $3.2 million net
profit for 2010, while an improvement on its $160 million loss in 2008,
is down more than 90 per cent from the profits it was reporting before
the GFC.
Sydney's Anglican archbishop, Peter Jensen,
last year told the Sydney Synod: ''Our major task in the next decade is
to preserve the assets while growing the cash flow. And, humanly
speaking, that is going to require prayerfulness, skill, wisdom,
patience and self-control.''