Glencore (LON: GLEN) revealed on Thursday it had begun searching for a new chairman as Tony Hayward will step down from his role by 2022, after overseeing the appointment of the Swiss miner and world’s top commodities trader’s first new CEO in 20 years.
The decision, disclosed in Glencore’s annual report, is part of a change of the guard at company. It comes after long-serving chief executive Ivan Glasenberg announced he was leaving the company in June. He is being replaced by hand-picked successor Gary Nagle.
Hayward, former chief executive of BP, joined Glencore’s board in 2011. He should have left the company at the end of a nine-year term, in line with a UK governance code. Yet he said that the board supported him once again extending his term as he navigates the company through appointing a new chairman and ongoing legal issues, including a probe from the US Department of Justice.
“We have consulted with a number of our leading shareholders regarding this issue and they support a second and final extension to my term as a chairman, which the board will recommend to shareholders,” Hayward said in the company’s annual report published on Thursday. “I will step down at the latest by next year’s AGM. A search for my successor is underway.”
Rival Rio Tinto (ASX, LON, NYSE: RIO) is also looking for a new chair after Simon Thompson said in early March that he would leave next year. Thompson decision’s follows his handling of the destruction of two 46,000-year-old rock sacred shelters in Western Australia, which already cost the company’s CEO his job.
Glencore has recently made some board changes. It appointed in February former Anglo American CEO Cynthia Carroll, who became the firm’s third female director.
In its annual report, Glencore also disclosed that incoming CEO Gary Nagle will have a base salary of $1.9 million.
The executive, who currently runs the coal business, could be awarded up to $10.4 million a year with a target-related bonus.
But since 40% of his bonuses will be held back until two years after Nagle’s employment ends, the most he can earn in a year is $6.4 million, which is below what most of his peers earn, Glencore said.
The Swiss firm has only had three chief executives since it was founded in 1974. Nagle will be the first top boss subject to be largely dependent on his salary.
