West African Minerals Share News (WAFM)

LONDON (Alliance News) - West African Minerals Corp Thursday said it is giving Beaufort Nominees Ltd more time to provide it with more information so it can decide on the validity of a requisition of a general meeting for shareholders to decide on a series of proposed changes to the company's board.

In a statement, West African Minerals said the deadline has been extended to 1700 GMT on March 19 at Beaufort's request. The original deadline had been set for Thursday, March 12.

The news comes after West African Minerals said that Panetta Partners Ltd's solicitors wrote to it in a letter that also included a request from Beaufort that the company organise a general meeting for shareholders to vote on the removal of Managing Director Anton Mauve and Non-Executive Director Gerard Holden from the board. The letter also requested the appointment of Willy Simon, Sanjiv Sangar and Andrew Gutmann to the board.

There are questions as to whether Beaufort is able to call for a general meeting under the company's rules.

According to a West African Minerals statement on February 11, the letter from Panetta's solicitors said that Beaufort Nominees Ltd owns a 31.18% stake in the company, held through 117.5 million shares in the company, while Panetta holds 50.2 million shares, together representing a 44.5% stake. But on February 20, West African Minerals said that Panetta had informed it that Beaufort holds the shares on behalf of clients and does not have discretionary voting rights over its shares.

In that statement, West African Minerals said that meant that Beaufort does not have an "interest" in the company that would allow it to call for the general meeting. At that point, West African Minerals said that it was requesting further details as to whether the request for a general meeting was valid.

West African Minerals shares were untraded on Thursday. The stock closed at 2.9 pence.

By Samuel Agini; samagini@alliancenews.com; @samuelagini

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