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Cockerill, Munro quit Gold Fields
Allan Seccombe
Posted: Mon, 31 Mar 2008
[miningmx.com] -- GOLD Fields CEO Ian Cockerill and John Munro, the executive vice president of corporate development, have both quit the world’s fourth-largest gold mining company.
Nick Holland, the chief financial officer, will assume responsibilities as CEO, while Terence Goodlace, the head of the South African operations will become the chief operating officer.
After nine years at Gold Fields, Cockerill is joining a company outside the gold sector, Gold Fields said in a statement. His departure is effective 1 May 2008.
Gold Fields was down 4.6% on the news on the JSE at R113 each.
The market is speculating that Cockerill will join Anglo Platinum, which has been jointly led by Norman Mbazima, chief financial officer, and Duncan Wanblad, after the surprise resignation of Ralph Havenstein in July last year.
"If everything plays out the way we think it
will, it will be Anglo reclaiming Ian Cockerill," said an analyst who declined to be named.
“The decision to leave Gold Fields was not any easy one, but I have always believed that a CEO has a shelf life of about six to seven years,” Cockerill said in a statement. He has headed Gold Fields for six years.
With the new Cerro Corona project coming on stream within Gold Fields at Cerro Corona and
South Deep being pulled into shape, as well as the expansion at the Tarkwa mine in Ghana, it was time for a “fresh hand at the rudder”, he said.
"Two senior people leaving in the short term cannot be good in the short term, but Nick Holland has been with Gold Fields since its inception in 1998 and clearly it will have to regroup," said David Davis, a leading gold analyst with Credit Suisse Standard Securities.
The retention of Goodlace, who has overseen the troubled South Deep mine project as well as the handling of the South African power crisis, is important for continuity within the company, he said.
Munro is joining as CEO the new uranium company set up by Harmony Gold and the Pamodzi Resources Fund. Munro will assume his new position from 5 May 2008.
John ticks all the right boxes for us,” said Gerard Kemp, chief investment officer of Pamodzi Resources Fund. “We need a businessman for the uranium, not a miner. Uranium is a developing
business, not like gold. He needs to go out and negotiate contracts.”
The top structure of the South African gold industry has changed dramatically over the past year, with long-timers Bobby Godsell and Bernard Swanepoel stepping down from AngloGold Ashanti and Harmony Gold respectively.
Additional reporting by David McKay.
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