Senior non-exec sells out of Polo

Guy Elliott, the senior independent non-executive director of resources investor Polo Resources, has disposed of all his shares in the company.

Elliott sold 36m shares at 6.3p a share and his family trust sold 200,000 shares at 6.4p each. The sales brought in £2.28m and leave Elliott with no shares in the company.

Elliott exercised options over 5m shares at 3.5p each at the end of July. He previously acquired 3.03m shares at 5p each in October 2009.

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Elliott was previously non-executive chairman of Polo.

Polo has completed the sale of its stake in Extract Resources. There will be a special dividend of 3p a share and the shares go ex-dividend on 18 August - so the buyers of Elliott's shares will get the dividend. Elliott may have preferred taking the cash as a capital gain rather than as income. Polo recently widened its investing policy to cover undervalued investments in mining and oil assets or companies. The focus will be on producing assets. Polo had to declare an investing policy because it sold its coal joint venture in Mongolia.

Polo has been approached by 4% shareholder Laxey Partners but it rebuffed the investor's potential all share offer. Laxey wanted to sell off Polo's assets and return cash to shareholders but Polo has sold most of its investments following the approach.

Polo and fellow coal miner Caledon Resources called off their proposed merger in June because they could not agree on merger terms due to market volatility. However, Polo has invested £2.13m in a placing at 30p a share and it owns more than 27% of Caledon, which has drawn down a £14.9m loan from Polo in order to repay £14.5m of loan notes.

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Polo Resources (POL) Director name: Mr Guy ElliottAmount sold: 200,000 @ 6.40p Value: £12,800