Ayten Saridas to run Australian Pacific Coal after David Conry quits as executive chairman
Ex-Coronado Global finance boss Ayten Saridas has returned to an executive role in a coal company, stepping up to run Australian Pacific Coal after the resignation of chairman David Conry.
Former Coronado Global finance boss Ayten Saridas has returned to an executive role in a coal company after false starts in oil and gold, stepping up to run Australian Pacific Coal after the resignation of executive chairman David Conry.
Mr Conry quit after a hectic December quarter for APac Coal, with shareholders delivering a 90 per cent vote against the company’s remuneration report in late November after the company’s major shareholders saw off multiple takeover offers from companies associated with former billionaire Nathan Tinkler.
The company said on Monday that Ms Saridas, who was appointed as a director of the company ahead of its November annual shareholder meeting, would step in as its interim chief executive as the company looks to raise debt to fund the restart of its Dartbrook coal mine.
Former Shaw and Partners equities boss Mike Ryan, appointed as a director at the same time as Ms Saridas, will become APac’s chairman. The appointment of the pair effectively signals an end to last year’s turmoil at the company, which was rocked by a bitter brawl over its future.
APac had been looking to return Dartbrook to operations for years, but had built up $60m worth of debts to shareholder Trepang, an entity owned by Nick Paspaley and John Robinson.
The company had planned to sell Dartbrook to Trepang to extinguish the debts and was about to take the deal to shareholders in August when Mr Tinkler intervened with a 30c a share offer for the company, including an offer of refinancing for the Trepang debts. The offer was the second bite at APac by Mr Tinkler, who oversaw the acquisition of Dartbrook during his first brief stint at the company in 2015.
APac directors called off the shareholder vote in the wake of the offer, and Mr Tinkler’s bid was quickly followed by an alternative offer backed by Matt Latimore’s M Resources.
After some hasty negotiations – and under considerable pressure from Trepang – APac’s directors instead opted for a capital raising partly underwritten by M Resources, in which Trepang’s debt was converted into equity, with the company emerging with a 40 per cent stake in APac. Mr Tinkler returned with a $1 a share bid in September, with different backers, but made no headway.
The mess led to the 90 per cent vote against APac’s remuneration report in late November, and ultimately the replacement of the company’s entire board. APac was left with about $20m in cash after the raising, and still needs to find up to $120m in funding to restart Dartbrook by early 2024.
Ms Saridas comes with extensive experience in the capital markets, having steered Coronado to its $1.4bn Australian listing in 2018 as its chief financial officer. It is the third executive role for Ms Saridas in three years, after short-lived stints with Oil Search – where she quit as CFO after only three months, launching legal action against the company amid claims of bullying by former boss Kieran Wulff – and SolGold.
APac shares closed down 1.5c to 22.5c on Monday.