Chile-focused copper miner Antofagasta has completed a rejig of its boardroom in an effort to comply with stock exchange rules.
Antofagasta has lured Ivan Arriagada from Chilean state-owned rival Codelco — where he was vice president of administration and finance — to be chief executive of mining. Arriagada, a London School of Economics graduate, is a prominent figure in world commodities, having previously been an executive at mining giant BHP Billiton and Royal Dutch Shell.
The move was prompted by changes to Antofagasta’s board structure. Despite being one of London’s oldest listed companies — the FTSE 100 stalwart first raised cash for a railway in 1888 — Antofagasta didn’t meet modern corporate governance guidelines.
Antofagasta did not have a separate group chief executive and chairman, instead combining the two through executive chairman Jean-Paul Luksic since 2012.
The Luksic family owns 65% of the group’s shares, but he relinquished the chief executive role in August. Diego Hernandez stepped up from heading the mining division to become group chief executive. Hernandez said Arriagada’s appointment would allow him to dedicate time to “driving the company’s development initiatives”.
