PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Investment firm Quantum Pacific Capital on Monday laid out its plans for gaining back control of the Tujuh Bukit project, which Intrepid Mines lost last year, proposing a new board and renegotiating with the project owners.

PT Indo Multi Niaga and its successor company PT Bumi Sukses Indo (BSI) evicted Intrepid from the Tujuh Bukit copper/gold project, which is estimated to host some 30-million ounces of gold and 19-billion pounds of copper. The company has turned to the Indonesian legal system to regain access to the site.

Quantum Pacific founder and managing partner Greg Mazur said on a conference call on Monday that Intrepid’s strategy would further delay project development and would also prove costly to shareholders.

Mazur said that the current Intrepid board had failed to initially secure against a risk of losing its holding on the asset, and had, further, spent some A$100-million in shareholder capital on the project, without securing title to the project.

“The fact is that shareholders have lost over A$1-billion in value,” Mazur said.

“The fact is that they [the Intrepid board] failed to appropriately secure against this risk, and spent over A$100-million on this project without adequately securing a title to the project,” Mazur accused.

Quantum Pacific was leading a number of shareholders in an effort to overthrow the current board, with plans to boot out five of the six directors, and replace them with Quantum Pacific-approved candidates.

Mazur said that the new board would engage with the current owners of Tujuh Bukit to secure a shareholding in the project within the next six to nine months.

The shareholding would likely be “north of 0%, and south of 80%”, Mazur said.

He stated that the current project owners had indicated their willingness to engage with a Quantum Pacific-led board, and added that the capital firm’s plan had a far greater probability of success than Intrepid’s current strategy.

Mazur said that any new proposal made to the the current project owners would ensure that the Indonesian partners contributed financially to the project’s development and, with the company’s priorities aligned, that, in the search for foreign capital to progress the project, the project's credibility was enhanced.

“Our key criteria are simple; we want a direct legal interest in the project within six to nine months, and Intrepid will have a role in the ongoing project development.

“We are also planning on preserving all legal alternatives should negotiations falter,” Mazur said.

A shareholders meeting has been called for June 20, to allow shareholders to vote on the proposed board changes, and Mazur seemed confident that Quantum Pacific and its supporters, which currently held a combined 5.4% of Intrepid’s shares, would garner enough support to succeed in its bid.

Intrepid had previously defended its actions around the Tujuh Bukit project, saying that its investment in the project was both reasonable and appropriate, based on the company’s economic interest in the project, and that the arrangements in place for the project had been in accordance with Indonesian law and commercial practice.

Intrepid further raised doubts as to whether the company would remain listed on the ASX if the Quantum Pacific takeover was successful, and noted that the board restructure was akin to a takeover without Quantum Pacific paying an appropriate premium.