Afri-Can Marine Minerals Corp. has retained the services of Agoracom Investor Relations to supplement and enhance current investor relations services provided by Paradox Investor Relations. Agoracom will provide Afri-Can with on-line investor relation services, a Web 2.0 network for current shareholders and awareness through the world’s biggest websites for attracting new shareholders. Afri-Can decided to augment its investor relations via the Web to facilitate faster and more accessible communications, with both current and prospective shareholders.
Effective Jan. 8, 2010, a customized and monitored Afri-Can IR hub will be available on Agoracom’s website. The hub will allow Afri-Can to communicate with all investors simultaneously in near-real time. This will provide Afri-Can management with the ability to extend communications beyond text, via audio messages, video presentations, webcasts and podcasts. In addition to traditional e-mail, investors will also have the ability to receive all communications via RSS feed.
On Jan. 19, 2009, Agoracom launched a Canadian television, Web and search engine marketing campaign to drive small-cap investors to the Agoracom 100, an exclusive group of Canadian small-cap companies which includes Afri-Can. This marketing campaign targets mainstream media including daily spots on BNN, CNBC TV, Bloomberg TV, The Globe & Mail’s GlobeInvestor, Google, Yahoo!, MSN, AOL, Facebook, Agoracom and an array of other Tier 1 properties.
Afri-Can’s IR hub provides investors with two important functions. First, a monitored discussion forum for constructive and high-quality discussion amongst investors that is free of spam, profanity and misinformation. Second, it provides a social network for investors to create profiles that include photos, biographies, video messages and a rating system.
As an exclusive provider of Small-Cap Centres Powered by Agoracom to GlobeInvestor, Yahoo Finance Canada, AOL Finance Canada and Blackberry devices, Agoracom will provide top-tier financial coverage of all newsworthy Afri-Can press releases, to attract new and prospective shareholders
Afri-Can’s president and chief executive officer, Pierre Leveille, states: “I believe the time has come to increase our communications with both existing shareholders and the massive, on-line, small-cap community of investors. I encourage our shareholders to take advantage of our new on-line IR system. We are a fully accessible organization with a great story to tell.”
Under the terms of the agreement, Agoracom shall receive monthly cash compensation of $5,000 for a period of 12 months. Afri-Can has also granted Agoracom the option to acquire 300,000 shares at 17 cents per share, vested on a quarterly basis and maturing on Dec. 15, 2012. This agreement is subject to Canadian regulatory approval.
Afri-Can’s board of directors has granted options to purchase 800,000 common shares at 20 cents per share, to two directors. These options are exercisable until Dec. 18, 2014.
