Directors of drama-plagued rare earths play Northern Minerals raise issues regarding board ‘authority’

A pair of directors at Northern Minerals has taken issue with the timing of two crucial shareholder meetings, pointing to further drama at the geopolitically charged rare earths hopeful. The West Perth-based company issued an ASX statement late on Tuesday advising Bin Cai and Liangbing Yu, who make up half of the four-person board, had raised “procedural issues” regarding Northern Minerals’ court bids to defer an annual general meeting and an extraordinary general meeting. Northern Minerals has been seeking to delay the meetings to allow the Foreign Investment Review Board more time to work through a probe relating to ownership concerns surrounding the company’s stock. At the same time, Northern Minerals is dealing with a push from its biggest investor, Beijing-headquartered Vastness Investment Group, to get rid of executive chairman Adam Handley. In Tuesday’s update, Northern Minerals told shareholders the court had agreed that the notice period for the extraordinary general meeting — which would determine Mr Hadley’s fate — would need to be held within 10 days’ notice. “However, due to certain procedural issues raised by NTU Directors, Mr Bin Cai and Mr Liangbing Yu regarding the authority of the company to seek the EGM Deferral and the AGM Deferral, the Court deferred its consideration of those matters to a hearing scheduled for 2 March 2026,” Northern Minerals told the ASX. “The EGM Convening Date will not occur before the court has considered these matters.” Northern Minerals said it would “keep shareholders updated on any material developments”. Northern Minerals is thought to have been the target of a surreptitious campaign by Chinese-linked interests to gain control of the company at a time when the Albanese Government was stepping up efforts to break China’s stranglehold on metals critical to the energy transition and the manufacture of modern weapons. In June 2024, Treasurer Jim Chalmers ordered five entities thought to be linked to China to sell 613.6 million shares, or 10.4 per cent of the West Perth-based company, on national interest grounds. He had earlier blocked one associated company from increasing its stake in Northern Minerals to 19.9 per cent. Then, Dr Chalmers in June last year sued one of the five groups targeted by the sell-down order in the Federal Court for defying his edict. The Federal Court last month declared that a transfer of shares between Indian Ocean and Jing Tian, who at the time was the company’s director and sole shareholder, breached the disposal order and ordered them to pay a $14m fine. It is unclear how the Federal Court will collect the fine given Indian Ocean and Jing Tian are no longer major Northern Minerals shareholders and have likely cut ties to Australia. Shares in Northern Minerals last changed hands at 2.8¢.