Orbite Announces Addition to its Board of Directors
MONTREAL, QUEBEC--(Marketwired - May 21, 2014) - Orbite Aluminae Inc. (TSX:ORT)(OTCQX:EORBF) (" Orbite " or the " Company ") today announced that Mr. Shaun Usmar has been appointed to the Company's Board of Directors as an independent member, effective immediately.
Mr. Usmar currently is a Managing Partner at Magris Resources Inc., a company whose purpose is to acquire, build and operate mining assets on a global basis. Prior to joining Magris, Mr. Usmar was one of the initial senior executives that helped grow Xstrata plc from a company with 2500 employees and a market value of $500 million to one with 70,000 employees in 20 countries and a value of $58 billion. During his 11 years with Xstrata, he held roles on three different continents, ranging from General Manager of Business Development for Xstrata plc in London, to CFO of Xstrata Alloys in South Africa, the world's largest ferro-chrome producer, to CFO of Xstrata Nickel in Toronto, the world's fourth largest nickel producer, after the takeover of Falconbridge in 2006. He also helped establish and held the role of Chairman of Xstrata Technology, a business that developed and sold a number of leading processing technologies to the mining sector. Prior to Xstrata he worked at BHP Billiton in Corporate Finance, where he helped successfully conclude coal deals in Colombia as well as being part of the deal team on the $30 billion BHP Billiton merger. He started his career as a Production Engineer in the steel and aluminum sectors.
Throughout his career, Mr. Usmar has built up a strong track record in financial management and reporting, deal structuring and negotiations, financings, as well as restructuring and turnarounds. Mr. Usmar holds an MBA from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management and a B.Sc (Eng) in Metallurgy and Materials from the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa.
"We are very pleased that Shaun has agreed to join our Board", stated Claude Lamoureux, Orbite's Chairman of the Board. "He has great industry standing, and brings deep management experience in fields such as metallurgy, metals and alloys, as well as in finance, marketing and strategic planning. We believe this will all prove very valuable to Orbite through its commercialization phase and beyond. Over the past twelve months, our Board composition has changed substantially, significantly deepening and strengthening its capabilities in important areas, such as operations, deal making and corporate governance."
About Orbite
Orbite Aluminae Inc. is a Canadian cleantech company who's innovative and proprietary processes are expected to produce alumina and other high-value products, such as rare earth and rare metal oxides, at one of the lowest costs in the industry, and in a sustainable fashion, using feedstocks that include aluminous clay, kaolin, nepheline, bauxite, red mud and fly ash. Orbite is currently finalizing its first commercial high-purity alumina (HPA) production plant in Cap-Chat, Québec and has completed the basic engineering for a proposed smelter-grade alumina (SGA) production plant, which would use clay mined from its Grande-Vallée deposit. The Corporation's intellectual property portfolio contains 15 intellectual property families, and the Corporation owns the intellectual property rights to 11 patents and 66 pending patent applications in 10 different countries and regions. The first intellectual property family is patented in Canada, USA, Australia, China, and Russia. The Company also operates a state of the art technology development center in Laval, Quebec, where its technologies are developed and validated.
Investor Relations:
TMX EQUICOM
Mark Lakmaaker, External Investor Relations Consultant
1-800-385-5451, ext. 248
mlakmaaker@tmxequicom.com
For Media Inquiries:
TMX EQUICOM
Shaun Smith, External Media Relations Consultant
1-800-385-5451, ext. 252
ssmith@tmxequicom.com
