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LONDON/HONG KONG, April 13 (Reuters) – China Molybdenum International (CMOC) Chief Executive Kalidas Madhavpeddi has left the company and the parent group’s Executive Chairman Chaochun Li has replaced him as acting CEO.
A China-based spokesman said the move was a normal personnel change, adding “having the chairman serve as overseas CEO at the same time shows the company’s emphasis on the overseas business.”
Madhavpeddi had been at the helm of CMOC International since September 2008. He serves as a board member at Canadian mining companies Capstone Mining and Novagold Resources , according to his Linkedin profile.
He did not respond to a request for comment.
Li has been China Molybdenum executive chairman since 2014.
During Madhavpeddi’s tenure, CMOC made a series of acquisitions, including Freeport-McMoRan Inc.’s majority stake in the Tenke copper project in the Democratic Republic of Congo for $2.65 billion and Anglo American’s niobium and phosphates business in Brazil, both in 2016.
These came as most miners were cutting costs and making divestments to repair their balance sheets after a steep decline in commodities prices.
Madhavpeddi at the time said the company was looking for more international acquisitions and had ambitions to become a diversified global major.
The company, with a market capitalisation of more than $26 billion, was established in 2006 and listed on the stock exchanges of Hong Kong and Shanghai. It opened international headquarters in Phoenix, Arizona last year.
The parent’s two biggest shareholders are Cathay Fortune, a Chinese private equity group, and Luoyang Mining Group, controlled by local authorities in the central Chinese city.
Its mines in Africa, Brazil and Australia produce copper, cobalt, niobium and phosphates.
(By Barbara Lewis and Tom Daly; Writing by Clara Denina, Editing by David Evans)
