On Wednesday night, a dissident group of Chariot Resources Ltd. shareholders called for a new board due to the slow progress in the development of the Mina Justa/Marcona deposit in Peru, which the company calls one of the world’s premier advanced stage copper projects. This may precipitate a third party bid, according to Blackmont Capital analyst George Topping.

Led by mining mogul Lukas Lundin, the group says this has led to a consistent undervaluation of Chariot by the market.

“With copper prices on the rise, the time to act is now. We cannot stand to miss another opportunity to improve the market’s valuation of our company,” Mr. Lundin said in a statement. “Shareholders cannot afford to let current management remain in control and potentially miss what appears to be the start of another period of relatively high copper prices.”

The proposed slate of directors is Colin Benner, Donald Charter, Richard Clark, Brian Edgar, Wojtek Wodzicki and Mr. Lundin. They are mostly related to Lundin Mining Corp., a 17% shareholder of Chariot.

Mr. Topping at Blackmont is not in favour of the proposed slate due to the conflict of interest with Lundin.

Votes are to be cast at Chariot’s annual general meeting on Sept. 4. Since this is just two weeks away, it does not allow rival companies time to formulate a response and therefore should be delayed, the analyst told clients.

“We believe most shareholders would prefer to see management expidite a premium bid rather than changing the Board,” he said.

Mr. Topping rates Chariot at Outperform primarily because it is a potential take-over target, with a 55¢ price target.

Scotia Capital analyst Alex Terentiew noted that Chariot continues to advance the development of Mina Justa to “shovel ready” status.

He said the Environmental & Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) and permit applications are expected to be submitted to the Peruvian government for approval by the end of August. Approval of the ESIA is expected to take up to six months, but Chariot management thinks this could happen sooner given the lack of environmental and social issues identified at the project.

“In light of the improvement in copper prices and the continuing developments at Mina Justa, we believe the prospects of Chariot being acquired are improving significantly,” Mr. Terentiew said in a research note.

He raised his rating on the stock to Sector Perform and hiked his price target from 35¢ to 50¢.