KUALA LUMPUR (May 3): Shares of Bahvest Resources Bhd fell by as much as 15.5 sen or 43.06% on Wednesday (May 3) following news that the group has been issued a letter of demand over alleged wrongful occupation of a piece of mining land subleased from a firm linked to its substantial shareholder Datuk Lo Fui Ming.

The counter was the day's most active on Bursa Malaysia, and among the top losers.

It opened at 34 sen compared with Tuesday’s closing price of 36 sen, and ended the day at 21.5 sen, down 14.5 sen or 40.28%. This is the stock's lowest price since July 2012.

Bahvest saw 157.76 million shares traded, which is 12.72% of its share base of 1.24 billion shares and almost 51 times its two-month average trading volume of 3.1 million shares.

At the closing price, Bahvest has a market capitalisation of RM266.51 million.

It is unclear who was selling the Bahvest shares in the open market. Lo, who is also managing director and CEO of Bahvest, holds 199.53 million shares or 16.09% in the group.

Last week, five shareholders holding over 10% in Bahvest — Marlex Trading Ltd, Innosabah Capital Holdings Sdn Bhd, Datuk Lim Nyuk Sang @ Freddy Lim, Yong Fen Yoo and Chong Tzu Khen — were seeking to remove Lo, and two other directors from Bahvest’s board.

On Wednesday, Bahvest said it had received a letter of demand seeking RM20.4 million from Southsea Gold Sdn Bhd for alleged wrongful occupation and trespass into Southsea Gold’s lease land.

Bahvest, via its wholly-owned unit Wullersdorf Resources Sdn Bhd, conducted gold mining activities on a piece of land in Tawau, Sabah since 2017, which it subleased within a larger piece of mining lease land belonging to Southsea Gold for RM60,000 a month.

Southsea Gold is 75%-owned by Lo, who owns 16.09% of Bahvest. Another 25% in Southsea Gold is owned by Mohd Amir Masry, who is also a substantial shareholder of Bahvest with 66.53 million shares or a 5.37% stake.

In the letter of demand, Southsea Gold arrived at the RM20.4 million figure based on compensation of RM300,000 for the period from September 2017 to April 2023.

Southsea Gold also demanded that Wullersdorf remove all its structures namely crusher plant, factory and workers camp allegedly occupying the mining lease land, Bahvest said.

(Crosshead) Bahvest to provide record of depositors to dissenting minority shareholders

Meanwhile, Bahvest said its board of directors has decided that the group is inclined to provide its record of depositors (ROD) to the five shareholders seeking to convene an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) for the removal of Lo and the two other directors.

The ROD is required in order for the convenors to issue the notice of EGM. The five shareholders had planned to convene the meeting on May 25 in Kuala Lumpur.

At the same time, Bahvest said it “also recognises the rights of the directors facing removal to make representations why they should not be removed from office pursuant to Section 207 of the Companies Act 2016”.

“In the absence of grounds or basis seeking their removal, the company shall be demanding from the convenors their grounds, if any, for removal of the said directors. This is in the interest of natural justice and the directors’ rights under Section 207 of the Companies Act 2016 to make their representations to the shareholders,” Bahvest said.

Besides Lo, the five shareholders are also seeking to remove his son and Bahvest executive director Lo Teck Yong as well as the group's non-executive chairman Datuk Seri Dr Md Kamal Bilal from the board.