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Globe-trotting junior mining financier Stan Bharti has been targeted by a shareholder activist in a boardroom battle that could test the limits of compensation at money-losing companies.
Mr. Bharti, through his private, family-owned Toronto company Forbes & Manhattan, manages a large portfolio of publicly listed resource startups with mostly undeveloped properties in such remote corners as Kurdistan, Ethiopia and Mongolia. Mr. Bharti and a close-knit group of executives and directors have pocketed millions of dollars in consulting fees, bonuses and other payments at a time when a number of companies managed by Forbes & Manhattan have suffered declining financial health and stock performance.
His roster of advisers and directors includes retired Canadian major-general Lewis MacKenzie, former federal cabinet minister Pierre Pettigrew and Canada’s former ambassador to Iran, Ken Taylor. Mr. Bharti’s most prominent adviser, CNN talk show host Larry King, described himself in a Forbes & Manhattan promotional video as a global ambassador. “I provide the contacts, Stan does the close,” he said. which “equals success.”
In recent years, Mr. Bharti and his family have hosted lavish investor conferences at exclusive resorts, in Mexico and Brazil, featuring vodka-cooling ice sculptures and high-profile businessmen such as Eike Batista and Jim Rogers.
The good fortune, however, has not been enjoyed by stock holders, most of whom are small retail investors. Stock prices of resource ventures managed by Forbes & Manhattan have plunged sharply in recent years, prompting some shareholders to question compensation, stock deals and other transactions.
San Francisco activist investor Ryan Morris said Tuesday afternoon that he is launching a proxy battle to replace all seven directors at one of Forbes & Manhattan’s core holdings, Aberdeen International Inc.
Mr. Morris is critical of a recent Aberdeen private stock sale and lucrative compensation practices at a company struggling with losses and a collapsing stock price. Mr. Pettigrew, an Aberdeen director since 2007, resigned with two other directors from the board on Friday. The company named the former ambassador Mr. Taylor, who has served on the boards of other Forbes & Manhattan companies, as one of three new board appointees.
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