The winds of change continue to blow through copper miner Sandfire, with long-serving chief executive Karl Simich set to exit just months after the company’s chairman of 12 years departed.

Mr Simich has run Sandfire since it was a micro-cap explorer in 2008 but said on Friday that it was the “right time” to exit as the company’s Western Australian mine reaches the end of its life and the focus shifts to mines in Spain and Botswana.