Perth mining executive Michael Ruane is now buying shares in junior gold miner Maximus Resources.

Maximus (ASX:MXR) released a substantial shareholder notice to the ASX this morning that showed Mr Ruane now has a 5.4 per cent stake in the company.

He bought roughly 1.6 million shares for $114,893 at the end of January.

Mr Ruane recently took control of another small cap gold miner, Empire Resources (ASX:ERL), after mounting a successful board spill push.

He also attempted to topple gold explorer Echo Resources (ASX:EAR) in 2016 but was unsuccessful.

Maximus was last year engaged in a dispute with Empire over a gold processing agreement.

The company idled its Burbanks plant near Coolgardie, Western Australia after partner Empire wanted out of their gold processing partnership.

Maximus inked a deal in July 2017 for the supply of up to 150,000 tonnes of ore from Empire’s Penny’s Find gold project to the plant.

But Empire – prior to Mr Ruane taking control – decided the Burbanks plant was too far away and had been trucking ore to the closer Lakewood plant near Kalgoorlie instead.

Maximus has since restarted the plant, but says Empire continues to claim that a significant amount of gold recovered from the ore it supplied remains unaccounted for.

In late October, Maximus said the issue still hadn’t been resolved.

Stockhead is seeking comment from Mr Ruane.

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