Universal Coal Plc appointed Messrs Mark Eames and Paul John Sanger as Directors; and The removal of Mr. John Hopkins as a Director. Mr. Hopkins currently acts as independent Chairman of the Board. The company has now resolved to appoint Messrs Mark Eames and Paul John Sanger as Independent Non-Executive Directors to the Board of Universal, effective as of 11 December 2019. The Board has accordingly requested Brasidas to withdraw their request for the removal of the Chairman and to allow the restructured Board to evaluate and appoint an independent Chairman following the rotation of the existing Chairman during the course of 2020. Mr. Eames has over three decades of experience in international resources at a senior leadership level at some of the world's largest mining companies. He is a former Head of Planning Studies and Access (Australia) for BHP Ltd, where he was responsible for the planning of projects spanning coal, iron ore, copper and uranium. Previous to this, Mr. Eames spent 11 years with Glencore/Xstrata as the Head of Iron Ore Assets, and before this was the Chief Marketing Officer managing the firms thermal and coking coal sales. Mr. Eames began his career with Rio Tinto in 1982 where he most recently acted as General Manager of Business Analysis. He has a deep understanding of commodity markets, including coal and has an intimate knowledge of project planning, operations, logistics and sales. Mr. Sanger is Investment Banking Executive with over 30 years of experience focused on global capital markets. He is the former Managing Director and Head of Distribution (Asia) for Citi, where he managed and maintained a team of over 350 financial market professionals across 10 countries in public capital markets. Mr. Sanger has a long background dealing with the senior management of listed and unlisted corporations on public market strategy and has extensive experience in the entire lifespan of a publicly listed entity, including IPOs, mergers and acquisitions, asset purchases and sales, restructures and capital raises. Previous to this, Mr. Sanger ran the local trading operations of the firms Australian and Japanese arms. He is a proven leader and business strategist with an intimate knowledge of financial markets and corporate governance issues.