Mining’s old guard needs strong medicine
A new report details subpar investor returns in the mining industry over the last decade, particularly big cap diversified companies which have not adapted to new realities.
Glencore Plc co-head of zinc and copper trading Nick Popovic is retiring after more than 30 years, the latest departure among the generation of leaders that took the commodity giant into its 2011 initial public offering.
Popovic, 53, has been at Glencore since 1992 and helped build its sprawling zinc business in Kazakhstan. His departure was announced in an internal memo by chief executive officer Gary Nagle.
Glencore has experienced a sweeping changing of the guard in recent years, anchored by the departure of longstanding chief executive Ivan Glasenberg, who handed over to Nagle in 2021. One of the world’s biggest commodity merchants and miners, the company vies with rival Trafigura Group as the top metals trader.
In 2012, Glencore disclosed that Popovic owned a 1.35% stake in the company, worth more than $500 million, making him the eighth-largest shareholder among the top employees — a group that reaped an enormous windfall at the time of the IPO.
Popovic’s fellow co-head, Jyothish George, will become head of copper trading, according to the memo from Nagle. Inigo Segura and George Tourkolias will be appointed as co-heads of zinc trading, with Segura focusing on concentrates and Tourkolias on metals. Popovic will continue in his role as non-executive chairman of Glencore’s Kazzinc unit.
Nearly all the the generation of executives that led the company to its 2011 flotation have now left — with chief financial officer Steven Kalmin a notable exception — and have largely been replaced in their roles by internal promotions.
(By Archie Hunter and Thomas Biesheuvel, with assistance from Jack Farchy)
Related Article: Colorado School of Mines warns of ‘grey tsunami’ of mining industry retirements
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