Robust appoints new board members

By Ruli Setiawan

ASX-listed Robust Resources Limited announced Tuesday that Ilyas Khan and Ferdian Purnamasidi have been appointed to the Board, effective from today.

The company said in a statement that Ilyas Khan is the founder and senior partner of Stanhill Capital Partners; a Fellow of the University of Cambridge Judge Business School; and Chairman of Leonard Cheshire Disability. Ferdian Purnamasidi is Senior Corporate Development Manager of the Salim Group.

Elsewhere, Robust said it has received the Bidder?s Statement from Padiham Resources Pty Limited (a company jointly owned by Stanhill Capital Partners Holdings Limited and Droxford International Limited) of a joint off-market takeover offer for Robust at 49 cents per share.

As previously noted, the Padiham Offer represents an improvement of 56 percent over the earlier proposal from Stanhill, and a premium of 123 percent to Robust's share price prior to the original Stanhill announcement. The offer is only subject to a condition that acceptances are received in respect of at least 50.1 percent of the shares in which the joint bidders do not have a relevant interest.

Under the terms of an exemption granted by ASIC, this condition cannot be waived. In the absence of a superior proposal, and conditional upon an independent expert recommending (and continuing to recommend) that the offer is fair and reasonable, the directors of Robust unanimously recommend that shareholders accept this offer once it is capable of acceptance.

Robust?s Chairman, David King, said: ?The board believes the bid offers fair value and the certainty of cash at a substantial premium, at the same time relieving shareholders of risk and costs associated with development of the project.?

Robust is currently developing the Romang Island gold project in Maluku Province.

Editing by Reiner Simanjuntak