PETRA Diamonds’ CFO of seven years, Jacques Breytenbach, has resigned for “personal reasons”. Breytenbach would present the firm’s 2024 financial results towards the end of September before handing over his responsbilities, the group said in a statement.
If the appointment of a new CFO becomes effective before the end of his notice period, Breytenbach will step down earlier to accommodate this, said Petra. The process to identify Breytenbach’s successor will commence immediately, it added.
“Jacques has been a highly valued colleague at Petra in a variety of roles since joining the group in 2006 and having been CFO since 2016,” said Richard Duffy, Petra’s CEO. “He will leave with our very best wishes for his future endeavours.”
Breytenbach bows out of Petra having seen some volatile trading conditions including the last 12 months in which diamond prices have been under pressure.
Last month, Petra cut production guidance amid a slower recovery in diamond prices.
The group reported an interim basic loss per share of 4.87 US cents (previous comparable period – restated loss of 9.86 USc a share) while consolidated net debt jumped to $212.4m ($90.2m) and operational free cash flow turned to a negative $21.2m from a positive $12.5m.
Duffy has dropped production guidance for the full year to end-June to between 2.75 million and 2.85 million carats compared with previous guidance of 2.9m to 3.2m carats. The revised forecast resulted from “unforeseen underground mechanical issues which emerged at Finsch post period”.
