Halom abandons MMA meeting resolutions

MMA Offshore major shareholder Halom Investments has withdrawn its annual meeting resolution to remove the oil and gas company’s managing director Jeff Weber one day before the meeting.

Halom had been seeking to dump Mr Weber and appoint two of its own nominees to the board, however the investment group said this morning it would not proceed with the resolutions at tomorrow’s meeting.

MMA was forced to delay its annual meeting after a complaint from Halom to the Takeovers Panel regarding a $97 million capital raising.

Halom claimed the deal was designed to entrench the control held by the incumbent board and requested that no new shareholders be able to vote at the meeting.

However, the panel accepted an undertaking from MMA to postpone its meeting, thus allowing all new shareholders to be eligible to vote.

The panel did declare the circumstances of the raising unacceptable and said it would be concerned if the timetable initially adopted by MMA were to occur again.

Following the capital raising Halom’s stake in the company has dropped from 18 per cent to 7.8 per cent.

Halom said it did not participate in the raising because it had no faith in the current board and management among other things.

The investment group also said it was withdrawing its requisitioned resolutions for the annual meeting.

“Halom does not expect its nominees to sit on a board which launched an equity raising in a manner found by the Takeovers Panel to involve ‘unacceptable circumstances’ and having regard to the other concerns Halom has raised about governance and (lack of) accountability to shareholders of MMA,” Halom said.

MMA shares were trading up 3.85 per cent at 27 cents at 330pm AEDT.

The annual meeting will be held tomorrow at the Endeavour Shed in Fremantle.