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TORONTO (miningweekly.com) - Just under three years ago, First Uranium CEO Gordon Miller (who was at the time also chief executive of South Africa's Simmer & Jack Mines) moved to Toronto on a C$1-million loan from the uranium hopeful.

The advance was to help with the cost of relocating his family to Canada, where First Uranium is listed, but has no operations.

Back then, the move didn’t get much attention. That was until Miller and First Uranium chairperson Nigel Brunette started bumping heads hard with Simmers shareholder Vulisango.

The fact that Simmers wasn’t listed in Toronto (neither does it have any Canadian operations) became a key arrow in Vulisango’s successful bid to oust Miller and Brunette late last year.

Now, Miller appears to have been given the boot from First Uranium’s board too.

Interestingly, the TSX- and JSE-listed junior did not even mention that he was leaving, only that Simmers CEO Deon van der Mescht was joining First Uranium as interim CEO, and that the company’s head office was moving back to Johannesburg.

The omission, if unusual, was presumably deliberate.

Neither did the announcement say what would happen to Miller's loan. In the latest annual report, First Uranium states: "The loan carries interest at 4% payable monthly in arrears, is for a term of six years from date of closing of the purchase of a family residence and is unsecured."

First Uranium spokesperson Bob Tait didn’t respond to several attempts for comment from Mining Weekly Online.

The company also did not say what would happen to Brunette, though talk is that he is out too.

This is odd, after First Uranium lead independent director Robert Franklin in December welcomed Brunette and Miller's decision "to focus their time and attention exclusively on First Uranium".

And although Miller’s C$1-million isn’t much in the greater scheme of things, First Uranium is a company in financial distress.

The latest C$150-million (around R1,1-billion) capital raising it announced last week will prop the miner up for a while, but it by no means leads First Uranium out of the woods.

Part of the financing entails Gold Wheaton, a Canadian junior that buys gold streams from producers, picking up a stake in First Uranium of up to 17%, as a partial payback for a penalty the South African company incurred because of the late delivery of gold production.

Simmers, which until now owned about 37%, would, after the fundraising, lift its First Uranium stake to 48%.

The funding is, however, being done through a convertible note programme, which means Simmers and Gold Wheaton may opt to get their cash back at the end of the programme rather than shares.

Given the fact that members of the new Simmers board have expressed an interest in returning to majority ownership of First Uranium, and that it makes commercial sense to combine the two companies once again, Simmers may offer to buy Gold Wheaton’s stake.

That would take its holding to 63% of First Uranium.

Buying out minorities could then be on the cards; the question is, where would Simmers get the money for that?

Edited by: Liezel Hill