LONDON (Alliance News) - Nyota Minerals Ltd on Wednesday said its priority has been on reducing cash commitments and is looking for a buyer or farm-in partner for its Ivrea project stake, following the appointment of a new board after shareholders voted to oust the previous directors in May.
Nyota said the new directors have decided to sell the residual holding in KEFI Minerals Ltd, of 4.9 million shares, currently valued at around GBP25,000, and said focus has turned to cost reductions, noting that "savings will be made wherever possible".
This comes after Nyota shareholders voted in May to remove Chief Executive Richard Chase, Executive Director Michael Langoulant and Non-Executive Director Evan Kirby. They were replaced by Jonathan Morley-Kirk as non-executive chairman, Andrew Wright as chief executive officer and Sergey Budkin as non-executive director.
Nyota had previously purchased a 70% stake in the Ivrea projet in Italy in January, but nickel and copper markets have declined since, the company said and, as such, said it believes that the future capital markets prospects for junior green-field nickel-copper explorers will remain challenging.
Nyota said the project is still at a very early stage and will require substantial capital investment to undertake the exploration programme and develop the project further, which is not currently available to Nyota. As such, the company said it will not be contributing further cash to the expansion of the original tenements, or to the project at all, and will look for a buyer of its 70% stake or reach agreement with a farm-in partner.
In parallel with this, Nyota said it has continued its process of considering potential projects for its future development.
"The board's immediate priority has been to reduce cash commitments and investigate how best to extract value from the Ivrea Project, together with identifying new sources of funding to enable the company to consider new projects for the future development of the company. I look forward to providing shareholders with a further update in due course," said Moley-Kirk.
Shares in Nyota were down 24% at 0.04 pence on Wednesday morning.
By Hannah Boland; hannahboland@alliancenews.com; @Hannaheboland
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Kefi Gold (KEFI)