Middlemas chairs 11 companies

Prominent businessman Ian Middlemas will now chair 11 companies concurrently after replacing Craig Burton as chairman of niobium hopeful Cradle Resources.

Mr Burton, who was the founding chairman of Cradle, has switched roles with Mr Middlemas and will remain on the company’s board as a non-executive director.

He remains Cradle’s largest shareholder with an 18.3 per cent stake.

Cradle recently raised $2.1 million from investors to fund ongoing development work at the company’s half-owned Panda Hill niobium project in Tanzania.

“Mr Burton has been instrumental in the company’s evolution to date, having successfully overseen the original acquisition and subsequent project development over the last three years,” Cradle said in a statement.

“The board would like to thank Mr Burton for his valuable contributions and ongoing support of the company.

“Mr Middlemas is a long-standing, substantial shareholder in the company and has been involved with a number of resources companies at this stage of their evolution.”

Mr Middlemas is also chairman of local companies Paringa Resources, Berkeley Energia, Prairie Mining, Equatorial Resources, Pacific Ore, WCP Resources, Sovereign Metals, Apollo Minerals and Odyssey Energy.

He is also chairman of US firm Syntonic, which recently acquired Perth-based Pacific Ore in a reverse takeover.

Cradle shares were 1.9 per cent higher to 26.5 cents each at 10:30am.