Accelerate Resources has escaped an initial board spill with shareholders voting down an attempt by a group of rebel shareholders to oust its chairman and a director.

However, the majority of shareholders did not back the company’s (ASX:AX8) remuneration report, with nearly 54 per cent of votes cast against it.

A separate meeting was held just before the AGM today to deal with an initial “249D” notice received from GTT Global Opportunities, along with associated parties Mounts Bay Investments, Syracuse Capital, Murdoch Capital and Kcirtap Securities.

GTT was the lead manager for Accelerate’s IPO earlier this year, which earned it 5 million shares. Those shares are escrowed.

The first notice was received by Accelerate in late September and called for a meeting to be held to vote on the removal of chairman Grant Mooney and director Terry Topping.

Accelerate told the market late yesterday it had received a second notice calling for a new meeting to vote out managing director Yaxi Zhan.

Nearly 60 per cent of the votes cast were against the eviction of Mr Mooney and Mr Topping from the board.

Ms Zhan told Stockhead that GTT wanted Accelerate to stop spending and exploration on its flagship Mount Read cobalt project in Tasmania.

“We think they want to turn Accelerate into a cash box,” she said.

But Ms Zhan says Accelerate has achieved “quite a lot” on its Mount Read project since it listed back in February and wants to keep advancing the project.

The company has so far drilled 1000m across four holes and thinks its Mount Read project may host a large copper and cobalt system.

“Today proves the majority of the shareholders are still supporting the company,” Ms Zhan said.

She explained that the Accelerate board had tried to resolve the dispute with GTT privately.

GTT has also been involved in other battles to oust directors including its successful push to have a director of West Africa-focused gold explorer Viking Mines evicted.

More recently GTT won control of Baraka Energy & Resources (ASX:BKP) — a company it once raised money for.

Ms Zhan doesn’t hold concerns for her own position on the board.

“We believe we will continue to get the support from our shareholders and from the company’s perspective our focus will always be on delivering the project and delivering the results,” she said.

“Unfortunately things like this happen, so we have to spend some time but we will minimise the cost and then keep our focus.”

GTT has been contacted for comment.

Featured Companies

You might be interested in