Companhia
Mineira de Naburi (“CMdN”)
Pathfinder
Minerals Final Results for 2012
The owners of CMdN, General Veloso and Diogo Cavaco, note the
announcement of Pathfinder Minerals’ final results for 2012. As usual Pathfinder Minerals has failed to
provide its shareholders with the full picture.
The Legal Action
1) Pathfinder Minerals’ has to date obtained an
UNCONTESTED judgement in the UK.
General Veloso and Diogo Cavaco withdrew from the UK legal proceedings as they
were advised:
1.
that jurisdiction for the hearing of the case
brought by Pathfinder Minerals must be in Mozambique
2.
under the Mozambique Civil Code, Pathfinder
Minerals’ claim to own the shares of CMdN will fail.
The case is being vigorously
contested by General Veloso and Diogo Cavaco in the Mozambique courts.
2) The UK court explicitly recognized that
Pathfinder Minerals has never exercised its option to acquire shares of CMdN
and HAS NEVER PAID FOR THE SHARES.
3) General Veloso and Diogo Cavaco have obtained
an injunction preventing Pathfinder Minerals attempting to claim ownership of
CMdN through the English courts until the matter has been decided in Mozambique
– this crucial fact has been completely ignored in Pathfinder Minerals’ recent
announcement.
4) The British Government confirmed in writing on
29 May 2013 to General Veloso and Diogo Cavaco’s lawyers that it is content to
leave resolution of this matter to the “proper legal processes and procedures”.
Pathfinder Minerals’
financial position
According to Pathfinder Minerals’ announcement it only had cash of
£3.7m at the end of 2012 (compared to
the £11m raised in June 2011) and burnt cash at a rate of £392,000 per month
during 2012. In a note to the 2012 accounts Pathfinder Minerals disclosed that
it has burnt another £1.6m since the year end and “cash” currently stands at
£2.1m (before accrued creditors which are undisclosed) – implying a monthly
cash burn of at least £267,000 a month since year end.
Given that its published legal expenses were £3.1m, what has happened
to the other £5.8m and what is the real current cash position taking account of
accrued liabilities of Pathfinder Minerals?
More importantly, Pathfinder Minerals now appears to be trading
insolvently.
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Notes for Editors:
In the High Court judgement
obtained by Pathfinder Minerals in October 2012, the judge correctly found that
the Share Option Agreement by which Pathfinder Minerals claimed to own shares
of CMdN was indeed an option agreement, under which the option could only be
exercised upon payment of the purchase price of $9.9m, which has not been paid.
Accordingly, under Mozambique law ownership of CMdN shares never passed to Pathfinder
Minerals.
To this day, the promoters
of Pathfinder Minerals, Nick Trew, Gordon Dickie, John McKeon and Tim Baldwin
have only ever paid $100,000 in respect of the Option Agreement entered into in
good faith by General Veloso and Diogo Cavaco in 2006.
The
owners remain highly confident however that while it is likely to take several
years for this case to be finally resolved, they will be successful in
defending their rights of ownership under Mozambique law.
