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JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – The new high-powered board of JSE-listed gold-and-uranium company Simmer & Jack Mines, (Simmers) is taking decisive action to put its First Uranium charge on a new financial trajectory.

The ink was hardly dry on the appointment of Deon van der Mescht as Simmers CEO when he was sent to Canada as interim president of First Uranium to lead initiatives aimed at recapitalising the TSX-listed company.

Van der Mescht replaces former First Uranium CEO Gordon Miller, who came under intense pressure from black economically empowered shareholder Vulisango last year to quit as Simmers CEO.

In a Stock Exchange News Service (Sens) announcement on Wednesday, Simmers formalised the appointment of Nico Schoeman, a civil engineer well-versed with the Tau Lekoa gold mine being acquired as well as the restructuring of Simmers' Buffelsfontein gold mine, as interim Simmers CEO.

All the appointments are "with immediate effect". A former Simmers group business development executive, Schoeman has also been instrumental in defining Simmers' role in the refinancing of First Uranium.

A separate Sens announcement indicates that Miller has severed all ties with the group, having also resigned as a director of First Uranium. He quit all ties with Simmers last year.

Van der Mescht, who has spent a quarter century in the South African gold mining industry, joined Simmers in November 2005 and was appointed Simmers CEO in January.

The board of First Uranium will also be restructured - as was the case with Simmers earlier this year - following the company's recapitalisation.

Simmers is entitled to appoint three First Uranium directors and Gold Wheaton will be entitled to nominate one of the remaining four independent directors, should it decide to subscribe for a minimum of $10-million under the recapitalisation offering.

First Uranium's stated aim of becoming a low-cost producer of uranium and gold will require expansion of the company's underground resources at the Ezulwini mine in order to feed its new uranium and gold plants and also through the expansion of the plant capacity of company's Mine Waste Solutions tailings recovery facility.

Edited by: Creamer Media Reporter