Woollett fights on

Andrew Woollett, the irrepressible boss of miner and recycling specialist ZinOx, has a new spring in his step after beating off a shareholder rebellion led by zinc industry veteran Russ Robinson. The rebels, impatient with the AIM-quoted company’s share price fall from more than £4 in 2007 to 50p today, wanted to oust Woollett, the former head of Reunion Mining, and his fellow directors, install a new board and divert ZincOx’s remaining cash into steel dust recycling.

At the shareholders’ meeting called to consider these proposals, Woollett and his fellow directors trounced the rebels, whose motions were all voted down by nearly 60 per cent of the shareholding against 4.6 per cent in favour.

Woollett, who proclaimed his ‘delight’ at having the issue resolved ‘so conclusively’, had later on to report a plunge in annual pre-tax profits for ZincOx from £6.4 million to £37,000 for a net loss of almost £2 million, but remains as upbeat as ever. ‘We have been able to re-start our first recycling development,’ he proclaims. Woollett insists that he remains ‘convinced that our innovative approach represents a significant opportunity to produce low-cost zinc on a sustainable basis’.