JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – The board of platinum major Implats has identified a successor to incumbent CEO David Brown, who has announced that he will step down at the end of June to pursue his own interests.

The announcement was accompanied by a share price fall of more than 3% to R169 a share shortly before the JSE’s close of business on Wednesday.

Implats, a 56 000-employee business that mines, processes, refines and markets platinum-group metals, is in the process of finalising the appointment of the identified successor.

In its last quarterly report for the three months to September 30, the platinum miner reported 12% lower production, 27% lower refining, 10.8% higher units costs, unresolved indigenisation implementation in Zimbabwe and three deaths.

Implats chairperson Dr Khotso Mokhele said in a statement that in guiding the company through a difficult business environment in recent years, Brown had been able to maintain a strong balance sheet while ensuring a balance between investment and returns to shareholders.

He joined Implats as CFO in 1999 and took over the CEO reins from Keith Rumble six years ago.

Brown was instrumental in the development of Implats’ Zimbabwean assets and was also responsible for securing the Royal Bafokeng community as Implats’ anchor black economic-empowerment partner.

This time last year Dawn Earp resigned as CFO and, in 2009, October 22 was a day of high Implats drama when the then chairperson Fred Roux was acrimoniously sacked “with immediate effect”.

Roux said at the time that his sacking was the result of “doing the unthinkable and actually criticising Implats’ executives for a substandard performance, basically over-promising and under-delivering”.

In December, Brown was appointed as an independent nonexecutive director of JSE-listed telecommunications group Vodacom to serve as an audit, risk, compliance and remuneration committee member of the mobile group.
 

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