Brisbane Mazda

Icon Energy Ltd, a Queensland based small cap gas exploration company, is under threat of having its board replaced at an Extraordinary General Meeting called by major shareholders to be held on 23 February 2009.

The Icon Energy Action Group today announced via its website www.iconenergyactiongroup.org details of its plan to throw out the current board and replace it with a new team.

Ron Baldwin, spokesperson for the Action Group said, “There are a whole raft of things that the shareholders want to see eliminated from the way the company has operated.

Firstly, they want a Board that is not dominated by its two Executive Directors Secondly, they want a reduction in Executive salaries to industry standards Thirdly, they want accountability by the Executive to the Board and then by the Board to the shareholders”.

Ron Baldwin said that the shareholders wanted a system of Corporate Governance that guaranteed that the disasters of 2008 would not be repeated.

These disasters included the three wells drilled in 2007 in ATP626P being either drilled in the wrong spot or otherwise largely unusable, ordering the wrong dewatering pump from USA and attempting to obtain finance by way of a questionable convertible note.

An award winning Singapore journalist described these convertible notes as “toxic” and likely to cause the company’s share price to go into a “death spiral”. Ron Baldwin said that he provided a copy of the journalist’s report to Ray James, in early December 2008, prior to the EGM, but Ray James neglected to share this information with Icon Energy’s Chairman, Stephen Barry who only became aware of the report during the course of the EGM.

Despite this damaging report, the Board continued to recommend that shareholders approve the issue of ‘toxic’ convertible notes. Fortunately shareholders at the EGM rejected the Board’s recommendations.

In addition, Ron Baldwin said that the shareholders wanted to make sure that there could never be a repeat of a three person Board, dominated by two Executive Directors, which approved salaries, bonuses and free shares to its Executive Directors that could only be described as being “grossly excessive” for a company of the size and type of Icon Energy.

“To have a Managing Director of a small gas explorer, with no cash flow, paid $560,000.00 per year is just not acceptable to shareholders”, Ron Baldwin said.

Ron Baldwin also said that as the EGM of 23rd December 2008 approached, when the Executive Directors saw the overwhelming negative vote being lodged by Proxy against their bonus shares and bonus share scheme, they withdrew the seven resolutions relating to the bonuses and the scheme but they did not withdraw the bonuses – they just paid them in cash out of shareholders funds.

The Shareholders of Icon Energy Limited will now have an opportunity to express their wishes about the current Board at the Extraordinary General Meeting to be held on 23rd February 2009.
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For further information contact Ron Baldwin 07 3848 9699 or visit the website www.iconenergyactiongroup.org

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