BLAINE, WASHINGTON--(Marketwire - Jan. 4, 2011) - Century Mining Corporation ("Century" or the "Company") (TSX VENTURE:CMM) is pleased to announce the appointment of Mr. Daniel Major, B. Eng. (Honors) as the Company's new President, Chief Executive Officer and Director, with his appointment effective January 3, 2011.
"We are extremely fortunate to have a person of Daniel's calibre and experience to lead Century at this stage of its development. His broad and diversified experience will benefit the Company's current and future development of its extensive gold resources," said Keith Hulley, interim CEO of Century Mining.
Mr. Major brings close to 25 years of extensive international mining experience, including mine development planning, project development, operations management, commercial negotiations, project and debt financing, and mergers and acquisitions.
Mr. Major's recent roles included COO of Ecometals Limited, overcoming political and legal issues in South America to advance the company's exploration and development projects. Prior to that Mr. Major was at Basic Element, a large and diversified Moscow-based conglomerate that he joined in 2003. He was CEO of the resource division, specifically responsible for development of the mining and other assets in Russia. The division had an annual revenue turnover in excess of a half a billion dollars, and was a producer of approximately 8% of global ferro molybdenum. This division had over 17,000 employees, and under his tenure the mines achieved two million manhours without a lost time accident.
Earlier in Mr. Major's career, he spent time as an investment banker and senior mining analyst at financial institutions that included JP Morgan and HSBC, where he was part of the No. 1 ranked Global Mining Team. He holds a B.Eng. (Honors) from Camborne School of Mines in Cornwall, England.
Concurrently with Mr. Major's appointment, Mr. Keith Hulley will step down from the position of Interim CEO and also leave the Board of Century Mining to enjoy his retirement.
"I would like to thank Keith for his hard work and dedication during this transition period since August 2010. Keith's dedication to the Company to ensure progress continues at the Lamaque and San Juan gold mine operations has been invaluable and at 71 years of age and over 45 years in the mining field, we wish him a well deserved retirement," commented Ricardo Campoy, Lead Director of Century.
Mr. Daniel Major, Century's new President and CEO, has been granted 3,000,000 stock options for a period of five years at the closing price as at January 4, 2011. The Company has also granted stock options to Officers, employees and consultants to purchase up to 995,000 shares (445,000 shares at a price of $0.44 per share and 550,000 shares at a price of $0.43 per share) for a period of five years, which includes 225,000 options priced at $0.43 per share to Officers.
About Century Mining Corporation
Century Mining Corporation is a Canadian junior gold producer and holds strategic land positions in Canada, the United States and Peru. The Company's strategy is to grow to an intermediate gold producer through existing mine expansions and acquisitions of other strategic and synergistic gold opportunities.
On behalf of Century Mining Corporation,
Ricardo Campoy, Lead Director
6 comments:
There seems to be a Jan`11 Corp. Presentation on CMM`s website.
Feel's a bit odd to have so much information all of a sudden.
About time.
Wow. Very interesting. Daniel was clearly a inside candidate as he is connected to all of the BOD members via his executive stint at Ecometals - Hully, Lamarque, and Scola.
I think this is positive and this means the transition will be quite seamless. His bio looks very solid and his early experience as a top research analyst with JP Morgan and HSBC will be an additional plus giving him a top down perspective we really need. He also clearly has extensive international experience which will be great for a global marketing / opportunities perspective.
Have not taken time to digest the entire presentation yet but excited things are now rolling along.
Cheers,
RE
1) Major, President, CEO & Director
2) Sheridan, Secretary & Director
3) Scola, Director
4) Lamarque, Director
5) Campoy, Lead Director
Five directors on the BOD. Hulley has retired and is no longer a director.
Campoy is the Lead Director. There still does not appear to be an official Chairman of the BOD.
I don`t know what the rules are with regards to how many Canadian directors are required to be on the board (and I haven`t done any research on it either). However, I vaguely remember Peggy mentioning (during a conference call back in early 2010) that Century`s BOD needed to be comprised of another Canadian director in order to comply with something or the other. She felt that the Chairman`s position would likely be filled with a Canadian, in order properly align the BOD structure with the requirement.
I have no idea what Century`s current plans are with regards to filling the Chairman`s position (either with an Executive Chair or a Non-Executive Chair). As such, I have no ideas about possible timeframes either.
I`m not sure of Mr. Major`s nationality. However, given his international business background and schooling, I don`t get the impression that he is Canadian. My first guess would be that he is British.
If Peggy`s logic still applies today, we likely still need another Canadian on the BOD. Having a Canadian Chairman would also represent a compliment to Mr. Major`s international background. I guess we will eventually find out what they decide to do about the Chairman`s position.
With sp gaping up and closed at 0.475 can one say that at least market likes Mr Major's appointment as CEO?
Yes WF, and also in the face of a major gold correction day where many peers were down 8-10%.
The market hates uncertainty. It's both comforting and logistically key to know the top spot has been filled and in this case they actually set an expectation from a time-frame standpoint and EXCEEDED it. This is clearly a move in the right direction and towards regaining the market's trust and respectability.
The more I think about it, the more I feel we have a good fit. Mr. Major is at the right stage at his career where this is going to be his defining role where he can build a legacy and make it to the next level of mining executives.
Whereas the street may have liked a bigger "name" - I think it's more important that we have a guy who is already familiar with the board and also is at a stage of his career where he is both experienced and hungry for greater success. I'd rather have this guy than a guy who has been there done that where CMM would just be a little swan song "astrisk" to his storied career to the point where there is nothing at stake.
As I mentioned prior, I also love his research analyst background with JP Morgan / HSBC and he must be tied to Finisky as well since he was CEO of a major Russian producer.
This is clearly someone who is well rounded and has more than enough ability to take us to fair value vs. peers and complete our comeback story.
I also peeked at the January presentation. Everything is looking good. I don't think it really matters whether we did 36,37 or 38k in 2010. What is done is done. The key issue here is the major hurdles are clear and we are set for 100k+!!!! We simply need to as Peter states "take one day at a time" and continue our progress and a huge revaluation up over the next 12-18 months or so is simply INEVITABLE.
I was also pleased that they set the goal at 100k instead of 110k since 100k is a nice round number and hopefully it may even be "padded" a bit.
Look guys, everything is set up perfectly. We made it through the difficult period, now the best is yet to come.
I also have a sneaking suspicion that it might be the updated 43-101 that pushes us to new highs. Among all the turmoil in 2010, our MASSIVE high grade / politically friendly diversified resource and reserve base has been forgotten temporarily but trust me the street will wake up. I've seen this many times before.
Cheers,
RE
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