Board shake-up mooted at Polartechnics

Dramatic board changes have been proposed at Sydney device company Polartechnics (ASX:PLT).

The company has reported to the market that shareholder Richard Opara -- who earlier this month became the company's only substantial shareholder with 12.76 per cent of the voting power -- has called for an extraordinary general meeting with resolutions to replace non-executive chairman Colin Sutton and director Neville Hacker with two new directors, himself and Joanne Rees.

Interestingly, Rees was until recently a director herself -- she resigned in early February after approximately six months on the board.

And Opara is no stranger to biotech company boards -- he is currently the non-executive chairman of Australian Cancer Technology (ASX:ACU).

The board has also resolved to add to the EGM a resolution to remove director Glenn Rosewall. That would leave CEO Victor Skladnev as the sole surviving member of the current board line-up.

Polartechnics, which is commercialising screening systems for detection of skin and cervical cancer as well as an image, video and patient data management system, has steadily declined in value since it reached its peak share price of more than AUD$6.00 in February 2000. The share price at the time of writing was $0.36.

In December the company posted half-year revenues of $3.1 million -- up substantially on the $1.2 million posted for the same period last year. The company hopes to achieve profitability by the end of this calendar year. It also raised $3.195 million in an underwritten placement in early January.

At time of writing Polartechnics had not responded to requests for a comment.