Alecto Minerals announces Mark Wellesley-Wood to the Board as upcoming Non-Executive Chairman

– UK, London – Alecto Minerals plc (AIM: ALO), the AIM quoted mineral exploration company focussed on West and East Africa, is pleased to announce that Mark Wellesley-Wood, who has enjoyed an extensive career in the City gaining over 40 years’ experience in both the mining and investment banking sectors, will be joining the Board as Non-Executive Chairman with immediate effect.  Mark is replacing Michael Johnson who is stepping down from the Board to pursue other business interests.

Mark is a mining engineer and Fellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining.  Until recently he was a director within corporate finance of Investec Investment Banking and Securities in London, prior to which he was Head of Corporate Finance at Ambrian Partners.  Mark also previously worked at the former Dresdner Kleinwort Benson as Global Sector Head for Mining.  Mark has been closely involved in mining activities in Africa throughout his career, having held the positions of Executive Chairman and CEO of South African gold miner, DRDGold Limited.  Other previous directorships include his position as CEO of Metallon Corporation Ltd, which operates gold mines in Zimbabwe, Non-Executive Director of Oxus Gold plc at the time of its IPO, Non-Executive Chairman of Mwana Africa plc and Executive Chairman of UK tin miner Geevor Ltd.

Alecto’s CEO, Mark Jones, commented: “I am delighted to welcome Mark to the Alecto Board and look forward to benefitting from his wealth of experience in the mining and investment arenas.  His expertise and network will be particularly useful as we pursue our strategy of building value across our gold and base metal portfolio in Africa through exploration and by rolling out our joint venture model, which has been successfully applied to our Ethiopian gold assets. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Mike for his support during his tenure and wish him all the best in his future endeavours.”

 About Alecto Minerals

Alecto Minerals plc is an African focussed, gold and base metal exploration and development company quoted on AIM with exploration projects in Mali, Ethiopia and Mauritania. The on-going development of the Kossanto Gold Project in Mali is the Company’s predominant operational focus and with significant value upside potential evident across the tenure, the Board plans to build on its current independent inferred resource estimate of 6.72Mt grading at 1.14g/t Au for an aggregate of 247,000 oz Au with a cut-off grade of 0.5g/t Au for the Gourbassi target reported in accordance with the guidelines of the JORC Code (2012).

Alecto also has a joint venture with Centamin plc over two prospective gold exploration licences in Ethiopia which sees Alecto retain exposure to the assets with no capital expenditure obligations, as well as the wholly owned Wad Amour IOCG Project in Mauritania which is at an exploration stage.  Combined, these projects provide the Company with a strong, diversified portfolio with exciting exploration upside potential

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