JSM IndoChina rejects Passport Capital claims

JSM IndoChina, an AIM-listed property fund focused on Cambodia and Vietnam, hit back at an activist shareholder yesterday, rubbishing claims of mismanagement.

Passport Capital, a San Francisco-based investor holding a 13.4 per cent stake, requisitioned a special general meeting last week in an attempt to oust the board and return surplus cash to shareholders, claiming that JSM had moved too slowly to spend its IPO proceeds.

JSM said that Passport merely was trying to obtain a short-term gain through a cash return at the cost of the future sustainability and growth of the company, and at the expense of fellow shareholders.

The group added that it believed Passport’s accusations — which called into question JSM’s corporate governance over issues such as loans to directors and payment of investment management fees — were unfounded and without merit. The shares fell 0.04p to 0.69p.

Churchill Mining rose 8½p to 113½p after it said that an initial reserve estimate at its East Kutai Coal Project in Indonesia had shown it to have 956 million tonnes of thermal coal.

Rockhopper Petroleum fell 5½p to 59p after it said that it had raised £50 million in a placing of 92.6 million shares at 54p through Canaccord Adams to fund drilling in the Falkland Islands. Aurelian Oil & Gas rose 2½p to 19½p after the AIM-listed group said that a well it had drilled in Romania has struck gas and as the company sealed a gas sales agreement in Poland. Zenergy Power fell 2p to 114½, despite getting a new order for an induction heater and saying that its superconductor was now considered commercially favourable by four industrial metals producers.