Acacia Mining Plc (ACA.L, Financial) announced changes in the board of its management on Tuesday. The stock was trading around 1.167 British pounds ($1.50) per share on the London Stock Exchange Wednesday morning, up about 2.4% from yesterday.
Kelvin Dushnisky, the company's former chairman of its board of directors, resigned from the position effective starting Aug. 31. Dushnisky will be the new CEO of AngloGold Ashanti Limited (AU). He will also leave his position of president and executive director of Barrick Gold Corp. (ABX, Financial).
Rachel English will replace Dushnisky as Acacia's board chairman on an interim basis starting Sept. 1.Â
In addition to interim chairman, the board will list 5 directors. Four directors are non-executive, of which three are independent and one has been appointed by Barrick Gold Corp., which has a 63.9% equity stake in Acacia Mining. The subsidiary of Barrick is a U.K. gold mining company operating in Tanzania.
English was one of Acacia’s independent non-executive directors and has lengthy experience as senior manager in BG Group and Royal Dutch Shell. The senior manager has also served the World Bank Group and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
For the 52 weeks through Aug. 28, the share price of Acacia fell 43.4%, and it has not paid any dividend to its shareholders.
The stock seems to be cheap. Acacia is now trading underneath the 200-, 100- and 50-day simple moving average lines. Even though the price-book ratio is 40.67 versus an industry median of 1.74, the enterprice value-to-Ebitda ratio is 1.54, versus an industry median of 9.30.
Investors are hoping that a rising commodity price will support the share price over the next four quarters. But Wall Street does not seem to be as enthusiastic about Acacia Mining as it is about other gold stocks. A recommendation rating of 2.7 out of 5 means that analysts are not going beyond a "hold" suggestion.
Disclosure: I have no positions in any security mentioned in this article.
