PAN African Resources (Pan African) CEO, Cobus Loots, said the company would meet with shareholders who voted against the company’s executive remuneration policy as well as a standard resolution to issue shares without having to seek prior shareholder approval.
Some 51.39% of shareholders represented at an annual general meeting on November 20 voted against the remuneration policy versus some 48.61% who voted in favour of it. In terms of a resolution to “allot equity securities”, 53.79% of shareholders voted against it.
However, 99.76% of shareholders voted in favour of the re-election of Loots whilst other directors received a similarly resounding show of support. “We take note of the voting and we will engage with shareholders,” Loots told Miningmx.
He added that the vote against using shares to raise cash or for use in corporate transactions was “unfortunate”, although he added that company didn’t expect having to issue shares in the current year as the focus was to run its Barberton and Elikhulu assets as efficiently as possible.
“I think we’ve done some great work on repositioning the company,” said Loots. He also said the company’s share price had outperformed the gold mining sector even though Pan African stock was 38% lower on a 12-month basis.
Loots was paid R5.3m in the firm’s 2017 financial year, according to the Pan African’s integrated report on its website. For the 2018 financial year, he and other executives agreed to forfeit their short term incentives following the retrenchment of 1,635 group employees at the underground section of Evander Mines in Mpumalanga.
The closure of Evander Mines cost R161m in retrenchments and an impairment of R1.7bn, which contributed to a R1.56bn loss for Pan African in the 2018 financial year. From a headline share earnings perspective, the number was 18.71 cents/share which compares with 38.72c/share in headline earnings in the 2017 financial year.
Pan African also passed the dividend for the 2018 financial year, although Loots said there was a commitment to reinstate the dividend in the current year.
Said Loots in September: “Our board is confident that at prevailing ZAR (rand) gold prices, and as a result of the remedial measures implemented, Pan African Resources will be able to resume its attractive dividends in the near future”.
Loots said at the time that all of the group’s operations were now cash flow positive, doubtless assisted by the improvement in the rand gold price.
