TOM Albanese, CEO of Vedanta, may relinquish his position at the UK-listed firm on August 31, a development the company said was in line with the terms of his fixed contract which has been extended from its original March 31 expiry date.
“Vedanta Resources announces that the company has agreed to extend the executive service agreement of its chief executive officer, Tom Albanese until 31 August 2017,” the company said in a statement today. “Tom’s three-year contract was due to expire on 31 March 2017,” it added.
The probable departure of Albanese comes soon after Cynthia Carroll, hired in 2015 to advise group chairman Anil Agarwal, left the company. Speaking to Bloomberg News earlier this week, Agarwal said Carroll had left to pursue “other things”.
Said Vedanta: “Mr Anil Agarwal, Vedanta’s executive chairman and the chairman of the nominations committee, is leading the succession process to identify candidates with appropriate global experience and a further announcement will be made in due course”. Albanese hasn’t been entirely ruled out for a further contract extension.
The departure of two senior executives in Albanese and Carroll comes at an interesting time for Vedanta as it has been linked to possible corporate with Anglo American.
Agarwal earlier this month surprised mining sector market watchers when his family trust, Volcan Investments, bought a 13% stake in Anglo American.
Volcan Investments said it had no interest in launching a takeover of Anglo American, nor would Agarwal seek a board seat, saying the investment in Anglo was for personal gain.
But analysts are sceptical owing to the structure of the investment which sees Vedanta embark on an usual strategy of effectively renting the shares in Anglo with the assistance of bond market investors. The structure of the deal also doesn’t allow for much market uplift in Anglo shares.
Albanese told reporters in November last year that his mind was on his day job after being named in correspondence relating to a bribery scandal at his former company Rio Tinto. Albanese was CEO of Rio Tinto between 2007 and 2013. He was named in e-mails concerning the payment of $10.5m to a contractor in Guinea in 2011. The payment was for services related to the Simandou iron ore project from which Rio Tinto is to divest.
A Vedanta spokesperson said the possible departure of Albanese had nothing to do either with the Volcan Investments deal, nor the investigation at Simandou.
