Greatland adds Australian director ahead of possible ASX listing

Greatland Gold announced the appointment of Yasmin Broughton as an independent non-executive director on Tuesday, effective immediately.

The AIM-traded firm said Broughton would bring more than 20 years of experience working with ASX-listed companies, with expertise in governance, risk management, compliance, and regulation.

She currently serves as a non-executive director of RAC Group, Synergy, and Wright Prospecting, and previously served as non-executive director of Resolute Mining and Western Areas.

Greatland said Broughton's appointment would further strengthen its board ahead of its planned listing on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX), which was targeted for the September quarter, subject to regulatory clearance.

The company said it is evaluating a corporate reorganisation as part of the ASX listing, which would involve the Greatland group sitting under a new parent company incorporated in Australia.

It said the reorganisation would be subject to approval by Greatland shareholders and the UK courts.

“We are delighted to welcome Yasmin to Greatland's board of directors,” said chairman Mark Barnaba.

“Yasmin is an outstanding individual whose legal, governance and risk management skills will augment our board.

“Yasmin is an Australian-based director, who is well placed to contribute to the next phase of Greatland's growth, beginning with our planned ASX listing this year.”

Greatland said it believed that the reorganisation would provide better alignment of its corporate structure with its assets and operations, reduce costs and complexity associated with owning assets and conducting operations in Australia while being domiciled in the UK, provide greater flexibility to pursue growth initiatives, and increase institutional ownership of Greatland.

If the reorganisation was undertaken, Greatland - through a new Australian parent company - would remain listed on AIM, enabling shareholders to continue to trade in sterling.

The purposes and objectives of the ASX listing would be to facilitate increased equity research and institutional investor ownership of Greatland to support greater liquidity and interest in the stock, enhance the firm’s capital markets profile, and provide it with access to deeper pools of capital to support longer-term growth.

Greatland said it remained committed to the AIM market and its UK shareholders, and would keep shareholders informed on all material developments as it continued to evaluate and progress the ASX listing and reorganisation.

Shareholders would be provided with detailed information to consider ahead of a shareholder vote on the reorganisation.

“Greatland has an ambitious growth agenda and the appointment of Yasmin Broughton to our board is timely in the lead up to our planned listing on the ASX,” said managing director Shaun Day.

“While we consider that a listing on the ASX is important to supporting the creation of long-term shareholder value, the UK remains an important market for Greatland and accordingly our shareholders will continue to be able to trade on the LSE's AIM.”

Day said the potential simplification of the organisational structure would remove some of the current costs and complexity associated with having operations in Australia while being corporately domiciled in the UK.

“Importantly, the ASX listing is intended to provide a platform to attract additional investor interest in Greatland, which would be positive for our existing shareholders.”

At 1152 BST, shares in Greatland Gold were up 1.18% in London, at 8.14p.

Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.