Minbos – which is headed up by former Dyno Nobel Executive Mr Peter Richards – has secured a portfolio of high quality phosphate resource assets in the central African nations of Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The launch of the Minbos IPO comes amidst surging investor interest in the global fertiliser industry, with BHP Billiton’s recent US$40 billion hostile takeover offer for Canada’s Potash Corp placing the spotlight firmly on this rapidly growing sector.

Phosphate is an essential component in certain agricultural uses for which there is no substitute. Increased demand worldwide for phosphate-based products is not currently being matched by the development of new projects, creating a significant opportunity for new market entrants.

The potential scale of the projects is demonstrated by an Exploration Target (1) which has been established for the Angolan licence area of between 333 and 538Mt (estimated by Coffey Mining Pty), with a historically reported grade range of 10-20% phosphate bearing material. 45,000m of drilling has been conducted previously at the project, which covers a total area of 4,126km2. Historical metallurgical test work indicates that the phosphate rock is amenable to beneficiation with a P2O5 grade above 30% and recoveries of over 75%.

The Projects are ideally located close to infrastructure and ports. The close proximity of the licences to the coastal ports, as well as established transportation infrastructure is likely to result in both capital and operating costs remaining relatively low when compared to other phosphate operations globally.

There is also a significant opportunity to identify further phosphate bearing prospects within the region especially in the under explored DRC licenses and applications. The potential scale of these Projects gives Minbos the potential to become a major global supplier of rock phosphate and become an integrated downstream supplier of phosphate products.

The funds raised through the IPO which will be applied to an aggressive drilling program at a number of specified targets within the two projects, with the objective of developing a JORC compliant resource statement for each.

Medium term targets for the company consist of detailed feasibility and development works, to be undertaken after delineation drilling, metallurgical testwork and prefeasibility studies.

IPO Details

Minbos has lodged a Prospectus with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) for the issue of 30 million shares at 20 cents each to raise up to $6 million, with provision to accept oversubscriptions of a further $2 million. The Company currently has 28.25 million shares on offer held by vendors, founders and seed investors.

A copy of the Prospectus can be downloaded from www.minbos.com and offers of securities will be made in the Prospectus. All investors should consider the Prospectus in full before deciding to invest and must use an application form accompanying the Prospectus in order to apply for shares.

Following completion of the Offer, the Company will have 58.25 million shares on issue plus 14 million options and 35 million performance shares as a condition of the takeover of Tunan.

Otsana Capital is the financial arranger to the IPO with Perth-based stockbroking firm Cunningham Peterson Sharbanee Securities as Lead Broker to the issue, which opens on 4 September and is scheduled to close at 5pm on 27 September ahead of a targeted listing date of 8 October.

Board

Minbos is headed up by an experienced Board and Management team with a strong track record at the corporate and technical level. The Company’s Executive Chairman is Mr Peter Richards, who has over 30 years of business and international experience with global companies including BP plc, Wesfarmers Ltd and Dyno Nobel Limited. He recently retired as CEO of Dyno Nobel following its successful takeover.

Other board members include experienced mining executive, Dave Reeves, experienced corporate consultant Faldi Ismail. Technical Director John Ciganek and non-executive Director Domingoes Catulichi.

Important Notice: The offer of the securities in Minbos Resources Limited is made in a Prospectus dated 27 August 2010. Anyone wishing to acquire the securities will need to complete the application form accompanying the Prospectus. This release does not constitute a solicitation to acquire securities in Minbos Resources Limited.

(1) Note: The potential quantity and grade of the Exploration Target set out above is conceptual in nature. There has been insufficient exploration to define a mineral resource in accordance with the JORC Code and it is uncertain that further exploration will result in the determination of a mineral resource.

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Yves Mechaka was brought on board in April 2008, and was tasked with the goal of setting up the Treasury Department and to help assess, monitor, and manage multiple public Sukuk issues. He also led the management and supervision of all aspects of payments, cash flow, and investments.

“I ensured that strong relationships were maintained with other departments in a manner consistent with company policies,” says Mechaka, who is a former member of the Financial Planning Standards Council of Canada (FPSC). “I also monitored compliance with investment policies and government regulations.”

Dar Al-Arkan specializes in residential real estate, specifically the development of master-planned lifestyle residential communities. They offer developed land parcels, apartments, and villas. Based in Riyadh, Dar Al-Arkan was established in 1994 in response to the increased demand for quality housing in rapidly growing Saudi Arabia.

About Yves Mechaka
Mr. Mechaka has additional financial and leadership experience with Epycom Insurance Brokers Inc., Industrial Alliance Securities Inc., iForum Securities Inc., Desjardins Trust, and the Bank of Montreal. A finance professional with more than 25 years of expertise in business management, Yves Mechaka has a versatile skill set in investment and financial planning, cash flow management and implementation of processes, and experience as an entrepreneur. In his life, as well as throughout his impressive career, Mr. Mechaka has strived to abide by the following axioms: think positively, stay healthy, forgive and forget, and be happy.

Contact:

Yves Mechaka
Contact Yves Mechaka

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Industry leaders told MPs investigating the implications of the BP Deepwater Horizon explosion, amid fears a similar event could occur here, that the regulatory regime in the UK was “very, very strong”.

Malcolm Webb, chief executive of industry bo

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dy Oil and Gas UK said this country’s regulation is “superior” to the US system under which the Deepwater Horizon well was operating when it blew up in April, killing 11 workers and causing a huge oil spill.

He warned that preventing drilling of wells in the waters of the UK continental shelf would send a very negative message to industry investors who needed to pour 60 billion into exploration and extraction to support UK energy security.

“These investment funds will be prejudiced if the regime is stop-go, switch on, switch off, particularly if there’s no good reason for the switch off,” he told the Energy and Climate Change select committee.

Mr Webb told the MPs there was no case for a moratorium “given the strength of the regulatory regime we have here”.

“Just because an event has happened in another part of the world, doesn’t mean to say a regime such as ours, because that has happened, should stop doing what we’re doing in what I believe is an entirely safe and proper way,” he said.

Paul King, managing director of Transocean, the drilling company operating BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig when it exploded, insisted that the firm took safety seriously, saying his company “cares deeply” that all its staff “work safely”.

Court documents filed Tuesday morning in California’s Santa Clara County show that HP is accusing its former CEO of breach of contract and threatened misappropriation of trade secrets.

Mark Hurd

(Credit: HP)

HP released a statement Tuesday morning saying that “Mark Hurd agreed to and signed agreements designed to protect HP’s trade secrets and confidential information. HP intends to enforce those agreements.”

According to court documents (embedded below), HP believes that Hurd’s hiring by Oracle is a threat to the company and violates confidentiality agreements he signed on three different occasions during his tenure at HP.

Hurd was hired as co-president of Oracle, one of HP’s competitors, on Monday.

“Despite being paid millions of dollars in cash, stock, and stock options in exchange for Hurd’s agreements to protect HP’s trade secrets and confidential information during his employment and following his departure from his positions at HP as chairman of the board, chief executive officer, and president, HP is informed and believes and thereon alleges that Hurd has put HP’s most valuable trade secrets and confidential information in peril,” the suit says.

Working at Oracle, Hurd “will be in a situation in which he cannot perform his duties for Oracle without necessarily using and disclosing HP’s trade secrets and confidential information to others,” according to the suit.

HP is asking for unspecified “injunctive relief” and an order for Hurd to provide written notification to HP of his employment by Oracle.

Oracle did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In August, Hurd resigned suddenly after HP’s board of directors concluded that he had violated the company’s code of business conduct in connection with his relationship with a former marketing contractor who worked with HP.

The separation agreement that Hurd signed on August 6 when he resigned from HP does not include any noncompete clause. However, the document states “the Confidentiality Agreements shall remain in full force and effect.”

According to HP, the confidentiality agreement Hurd signed states that after leaving the company he would not provide services to any competitor of HP in any capacity. That agreement also states he would not solicit any HP customers, employees, or suppliers after leaving the company.

If he did take a job with a competitor in the year after leaving HP, Hurd had agreed to provide HP with written notice before taking the job, according to court documents. HP says he failed to do so when hired by Oracle.

Focus on trade secrets
The interesting part of the legal skirmish is HP’s claim of “threatened misappropriation of trade secrets.” HP is effectively suing Hurd for something he hasn’t done yet, which is share HP’s trade secrets with Oracle. It’s an odd claim, but also a legal maneuver made necessary because the state of California looks askance at noncompete agreements.

“California is very hostile [toward] claims of noncompetition like this one,” said Stephen Kramarsky, partner at the law firm Dewey, Pegno & Kramarsky. “It does enforce a company’s ability to protect its trade secrets, and that’s the allegation they have left, that [Hurd] has stolen trade secrets.”

Because the suit was filed just a day after Oracle announced it planned to hire Hurd, and because HP probably doesn’t yet have evidence suggesting that trade secrets may have been stolen, HP can only claim “inevitable disclosure” of such proprietary information about his former company. Essentially, in the normal course of doing his job as co-president at Oracle, Hurd would inevitably draw on information gathered while at the helm of HP–which HP states in the complaint.

Lawsuits like this one face tough going in California because the state specifically does not want companies turning confidentiality agreements into after-the-fact noncompete agreements, according to Kramarsky.

“It’s an interesting little dance [HP's lawyers have] to do,” he said. “His confidentiality agreements are enforceable. He can’t post HP confidential documents on the Internet. But that doesn’t mean he can’t use the knowledge that’s in his brain.”

Also of note is what HP didn’t ask for. Instead of filing a temporary restraining order preventing Hurd from beginning work at Oracle, which is what companies typically do in these types of suits–as IBM did when it sued Mark Papermaster over his hiring at Apple in 2008–HP asked for retroactive notice that he is joining Oracle, something that is now practically meaningless.

But several times in the complaint, HP ties Hurd’s confidentiality agreement to the large settlement Hurd received upon his agreement to resign last month.

“If you’re not getting a restraining order, then probably what you’re doing is maneuvering for position in a settlement,” said Kramarsky. Many times these cases are settled out of court, as we saw in the Papermaster-IBM battle, as well as Microsoft’s 2005 suit over Kai-Fu Lee joining Google.

And as part of any such eventual settlement–and most of these cases do settle out of court–HP could be angling for Hurd to give back some of his severance package, which is reportedly worth up to $40 million.

Court Filing: HP Civil Complaint Against Mark Hurd

This story was updated several times, the last at 2:10 p.m. PDT.

The body of Julius Hughes, 26, of the Brentwood and Antioch area, was discovered at 7:04 a.m. surrounded by bushes in an embankment behind a business at 8000 Jarvis Ave., police said.

Police had not identified any suspects Monday, and the Alameda County Coroner’s Bureau had not yet determined the cause of death.

Hughes had been arrested and charged with murder, robbery and weapons possession in December 2008 in connection with the San Francisco slaying of Royshawn Holden, 23. Holden was gunned down Sept. 14, 2008, during a robbery outside the Mr. Nice Guy Cannabis Club on Valencia Street in the Mission District.

The charges against Hughes were dropped in February 2009 after a grand jury failed to return a murder indictment against him, according to media reports at the time. His alleged accomplice, Ijeoma Ogbuagu, was convicted of first-degree murder and robbery in July 2009.

The discovery of Hughes’ body came after a pool party the night before at the W Suites hotel at 8200 Gateway Blvd.

When police were called about 8:40 p.m. to help disperse a crowd of 300 to 400 people, officers heard several gunshots from the parking lot of either the hotel or the adjacent business, but found no victims.

Fremont and

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Union City police also responded to help control the crowd. Newark officers are checking to see if the proper permits were obtained for the party, Newark police Cmdr. Bob Douglas said.

“We have to make sure at an event of that type, that there are safety precautions in place,” he said.

Police are asking anyone with information to call Detective Sgt. Mike Carroll at 510-578-4000, ext. 500.

ITProPortal reports various Twitter posts confirming orders have been shipped. Apple notes on the UK store that the three iPod touch models currently “Ships: 5-7 business days,” but many appear to arriving earlier than anticipated.

The new slimline iPod touch comes with many of the features found in the latest iPhone 4, including FaceTime video calling, a 960×640 resolution Retina display, HD video recording and powerful A4 processor.

“We’ve put our most advanced technology inside the new iPod touch”, said Steve Jobs last week. “Whether you’re listening to music, playing games, making FaceTime video calls, browsing the web, capturing HD video, or watching TV shows and movies, the new iPod touch with its Retina display, A4 chip and 3-axis gyro is more fun than ever”.

The new iPod touch 8GB costs £189, the 32GB is £249, while the 32GB is £329. Apple, for the first lists the amount of “VAT, duty and levies” included under the SRP.