Gold exploration firm Hummingbird annouces new chairman

BIRMINGHAM-registered gold exploration firm, Hummingbird Resources, has announced the appointment of its new Non-Executive Chairman.

Russell King has taken up the position with immediate effect following the retirement of Ian Cockerill after the firm’s AGM last month.

King is currently the Senior Independent Non-Executive Director of Aggreko, the FTSE 100 temporary power generation company which has its UK base in Cannock.  Prior to this, King served as Chief Strategy Officer at Anglo American where he had global responsibility for strategy, business development, government relations, safety and sustainable development. He was also a member of Anglo American’s plc executive committee for eight years. Between 2010 and 2013 he was a senior advisor to RBC Capital Markets on Metals and Mining.  King is also a Non-Executive Director of Interserve, Sepura and Spectris.  

Ian Cockerill will remain an adviser to Hummingbird Resources and in this capacity has been appointed to the Company’s Technical Advisory Committee (TAC). The TAC was established to provide high-level technical guidance to the company to ensure that its projects progress in the most efficient and cost-effective way possible.

Dan Betts, CEO of Hummingbird Resources, said: “I am delighted to welcome someone of Russell’s calibre to the board. He is highly respected across the sector and his in-depth global industry experience will be an enormous asset to Hummingbird as we look to commence construction at our Yanfolila Project early next year, and to help strategically evaluate the best ways to capitalise on the opportunities presented by the current market.

“On behalf of the board, I would like to once again express my thanks to Ian for his wise counsel as Chairman over the past five years. I am delighted he has agreed to join our Technical Advisory Committee where we will continue to benefit from his support and experience moving forward.”

The company has granted King 250,000 options over ordinary shares of 1p each. The share options are exercisable at 1p per share and amount to 0.3% of the issued share capital in total. The share options vest in two equal tranches over the two year period from grant subject to King remaining a director of the company.

The total number of ordinary shares currently in issue is 84,843,267; there are currently 5,910,000 options and 1,612,903 investor warrants outstanding.