ABM Resources (ASX:ABU)
Perth, May 26, 2009 AEST (ABN Newswire) - The directors of ABM Resources ("ABM")(ASX:ABU) are pleased to announce a Memorandum of Understanding reached with Ochre Holdings Pty Ltd ("Ochre"), a project finance and advisory group of which Dr Nick Archibald is a director and major shareholder. Ochre pursues natural resource and infrastructure-financing opportunities globally, with particular focus on highly prospective exploration and mineral endowed regions of Australia and the Americas.
Ochre will also enter into a Natural Resources Executive Agreement with ABM as part of the arrangement. Both agreements are subject to the due diligence currently being undertaken by Ochre, the results of which will be announced on Monday, 1st June 2009.
Dr Archibald, a geologist, is best known for his work within the Australian and North American exploration industries. Dr Archibald and his team at Fractal Graphics won the Goldcorp Challenge in 2001, a global internet-based competition aimed at identifying a further 6M Oz of gold at Goldcorp's Red Lake Mine in NW Ontario, Canada. The success with Goldcorp, now a CN$23billion major global gold company, gave the team at Fractal Graphics instant credibility in North America and led to the formation of Geoinformatics Exploration Inc. ("Geoinformatics"), an exploration company that forged strategic alliances with mining majors across the globe, including Kennecott Exploration, a subsidiary of Rio Tinto, Anglo American, Gold Fields and Goldcorp. From 2002 until 2008, Geoinformatics applied their technology advantage, making numerous discoveries over North America from Alaska to Mexico.
The Board believes the Agreement with Ochre and the future appointment of Dr Archibald to the ABM Board adds significantly to the potential value of the company. Dr Archibald's appointment will bring to ABM highly successful intellectual property in exploration, corporate experience and a high-level global network within the mining and financing sector. It is also intended that Ochre will identify and acquire a suite of new projects that, upon successful acquisition, will create a natural resources company of global significance. In the light of this refocus, the Company will also review its portfolio with particular focus on its African exploration assets.
The matters of the remuneration and incentive package for Ochre will be put to shareholders at an Extraordinary General Meeting, to be called as soon as possible. The ABM Board will commission an independent expert to prepare an assessment of the terms of the Agreement in terms of it being fair and or reasonable.
In summary, the Agreement with Ochre will provide ABM with a unique opportunity, resulting in the establishment of a highly market credible structure and focus on natural resources projects of global significance. Ochre intends to provide for the Company a strategic vision and team that will include:
- The provision, developed by Dr Archibald, of a corporate, technical and geological team highly experienced in natural resource evaluation and engineering delivery;
- The building of a new Board of Directors that will include proven industry leaders from the exploration, mining and finance industries;
- The building of an internationally experienced executive team working with Dr Archibald; and,
- Commitment to provide finance to adequately capitalise the Company to meet its objectives, including commitment to finance any required infrastructure facilities ("the infrastructure") in co-operation with any operating Company partners.
The focus of ABM going forward will be the development of strategic natural resources assets with a view to becoming a mining house of global significance. Therefore it is intended that current non-core African assets will be rationalized via a sale to third parties based on market valuations.
Ochre has 7 days from the ABM Board acceptance of this offer to conduct a due diligence review of ABM and, subject to a satisfactory outcome of this review, ABM will proceed to prepare the necessary papers for the shareholders' meeting. It is ABM's intention to finalize the Notice of Shareholder Meeting and obtain the relevant regulatory approvals as soon as practicable and will convene, subject to the Corporations Act and ABM's Constitution, a meeting at the earliest possible date.
The parties have also agreed to immediately convert the Agreement into a three year binding Agreement once the 7 day due diligence work by Ochre has been successfully completed. The binding Agreement will be finalized prior to the shareholder meeting.
We very much look forward to working with Ochre in building new significant projects that generate increased shareholder value into the future.
About ABM Resources NL
ABM Resources (ASX:ABU) is developing several gold discoveries in the Central Desert region of the Northern Territory of Australia. The Company has a multi-tiered approach to exploration and development with a combination of high-grade production scenarios such as the Old Pirate High-Grade Gold Project, large scale discoveries such as Buccaneer, and regional exploration discoveries such as the Hyperion Gold Project. In addition, ABM is committed to regional exploration programs throughout its extensive holdings including the alliance with Independence Group NL at the regional Lake Mackay Project.
| ||
|
