People: Alexander seeks new conquests

Chasing big deals with South African and Russian business bosses is youthful Alexander Johnson, chief executive officer of PLUS-quoted coal waste treatment specialist Worldwide Natural Resources. Claiming at 24 to be the youngest ever head of a UK quoted company, Johnson is negotiating a 15 million-tonne feedstock contract and has his eyes on a deal with a South African coal mining company to treat ten million tonnes of coal a year and generate a hoped-for £4 million annual profit.

A student at London’s Regents College business school before doing a stint with formidable ex-public relations chief Brian Basham’s investment research outfit Equity Development, Johnson joined London-based WNR earlier this year as investor relations director before moving into the hot seat later on. The company, which has raised more than £1.5 million of equity so far, holds exclusive rights in much of southern Africa to the proprietary HEAP process, which turns coal waste (known as ‘fines’) into pellets that can be re-used as fuel, with moisture cut to below 10 or 5 per cent and calorific value enhanced by up to 30 per cent.

With investors including Stephen Evans, producer of First Night and The Madness of King George among other films, and powerful Angolan backing, Johnson hints that WNR could also be in line for a 12 billion-tonne joint venture involving oligarchic Russian tycoons and yielding a potential £9 a tonne. The other day, Gopolang Makokwe, an ex-Anglo American mining engineer aged a venerable 42, became chairman of WNR, which has fixed a £2.2 million convertible loan facility to establish its first 50-tonnes-per-day plant.

Johnson has not always been concerned with basic industry. While at school, he worked for the ‘Paul & Betty’ fashion company.