Stormy meeting for Nickel Spoon

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32734, 11 October 1971, Page 16

Stormy meeting for Nickel Spoon

At a stormy annual meeting on Friday the shareholders of Nickel Spoon Mining Company, Ltd, elected a new board of directors which did not include the previous chairman (Mr S. S. Green).

In the course of the threehour meeting in Auckland, many of the 70 shareholders applauded a suggestion that all the directors should resign.

The existing directors who were re-elected were: Dr C. A. Corban. Mr T. A. Felton and Mr J. K. Wehi. The new directors are: Mr E. W. Jowsey, Mr W. Kean, Mr H. Sargent, and Mr H. Stewart. Not without opposition the directors were given the power to increase the capital of the company from $500,000 to $1 million. The meeting also approved the change of name to South Westland Mineral Company, Ltd. The notice of meeting had proposed a change of name to South Western Mineral Company, Ltd, but the chairman said he thought the name should be South Westland. When the revised name was put to the meeting it was carried. “The statement was made on the advice of responsible people—the advice was wrong,” said Mr Green in reply to a questioner who said that at least year’s annual meeting Mr Green had stated that the company had discovered large quantities of tin in South Westland.

To a further question he said: “So far the company hasn’t the evidence to prove that that claim was correct.” A shareholder who claimed

to be bankrupt as a result of buying shares in the company, informed the chairman that the statement had cost a lot of small people a lot of money.

The shareholder suggested that the company be very careful in future as to what it claimed to have discovered. Most of the three-hour meeting was taken up discussing the activities during the year of the company, whose claims are in South Westland.