African Minerals - Re: AMI Stream Log - High quality global journalism requires...

High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. See our Ts&Cs and Copyright Policy for more detail. Email [email protected] to buy additional rights. [link] Man of iron Corporate announcements tend to be drier than the Hebrides once were on the Sabbath. African Minerals has therefore challenged the conventions of the genre with a notice that is freighted with emotion. This depicts chief executive Alan Watling as a good man in Africa, battling bad weather and the Ebola outbreak at a Sierra Leonean mine to meet targets and keep staff healthy. Unusually, given that he has resigned, Mr Watling supplies a quote. Here he thanks executive chairman Frank Timis and praises “tens of thousands of decent, hard working people” for beating “overwhelming odds”. But this is no ordinary resignation. Mr Watling has quit because the mine has been mothballed following a slump in ore prices. The Aim-quoted business lacks the funds needed to resume production. Its shares have been suspended. African Minerals had hoped Shandong Iron and Steel would agree to inject funds. So far, the Chinese group has declined. It is hard to know who else Mr Watling might have in mind when he says he has “lost the respect of — and for — our partners”. Companies generally avoid barbs against collaborators who might support them financially. It smacks of a recklessness born of desperation that African Minerals has done so. [email protected]