Hudbay Minerals’ Alan Hair steps down as CEO

Canadian miner Hudbay Minerals (TSX, NYSE: HBM) announced Wednesday that Alan Hair had stepped down as its chief executive officer after more than 20 years with the company.

Former Nevsun Resources leader, Peter Kukielski, will serve as interim-CEO, while Hudbay looks for a permanent boss.

The move comes only two months after the Toronto-based miner settled a long-dragged out boardroom battle with its second-largest investor, Waterton Global Resource Management, which had been pushing to replace Hair and overhaul the board.

“Alan’s departure does not affect our strategic or financial outlook. Our focus remains on executing against our value creation strategy and delivering on a number of near-term catalysts,” Alan Hibben, chair of the board of directors, said in the statement. 

Much of Waterton’s discontent was triggered by Hudbay’s alleged intention to buy Chile’s Mantos Copper for about C$1 billion ($763 million) last year.

The private equity firm, which held a 12% stake in Hudbay as of May 3, went on to trashing the miner’s plans to acquire competitors, warning that those sorts of transactions could “adversely impact shareholders, the company’s balance sheet, and/or the company’s ability to effectively progress its current portfolio of assets.”

As part of its proxy fight, Waterton nominated five directors to the company’s board and Hudbay later agreed to elect a slate of 11 board members that included some of the nominees proposed by both parties.

Hudbay mines for zinc and copper, primarily in Canada’s Manitoba province, and also has operations in Peru and Arizona.