Rebel Albion shareholders are making plans to plunge the club into a High Court battle after chairman Jeremy Peace won the AGM shares battle.

Peace’s overwhelming majority share holding helped ensure victory, in the vote over his plans to introduce a shares consolidation at the Premier League club.

The change, which sees 10 old Albion shares become worth one of the new stock, is bitterly opposed by a rebel faction of shareholders.

Their spokesman David Billings made it clear after the Hawthorns showdown that his group had not given up the fight to stop the Peace proposal.

They are now ready to take their battle to the High Court.

Billings said: “We will meet in the next few days with a view to applying for an injunction. Jeremy Peace is looking after no other interests other than his own in this.

“The people I represent do not want to take control of the company and all think the chairman is doing a very good job running Albion. They are very angry about these proposals and about the way the chairman has gone about pursuing them.”

Billings admitted that his group could ultimately face six figure costs to proceed with the injunction, which would freeze the plan passed at the AGM, but that a number of the rebels were “wealthy industrialists” determined to pursue their opposition.

They accuse Peace of buying up shares at a price – £80 – which heavily undervalues Albion and doing so without an independent valuation of the club.

They also believe the scheme, which is likely to mop up a significant number of small share-holders unable to pay for the new £800 share, is a thinly disguised move by Peace to take total control of the Baggies.

Those accusations are dismissed by Peace who was in no mood to indulge his opponents today.

Peace kept discussion down to a minimum, cutting off Billings abruptly at one point, and forcefully dealing with any other dissenting voices, as his majority share holding saw the consolidation plan carried by 56,452 to 14,665 in a poll vote.