CuDeco boss sacked from Gold Coast-based copper hopeful by Chinese backers

CUDECO boss Wayne McCrae has been booted from the company he founded by his Chinese backers.

Wayne McCrae, chairman of CuDeco

CUDECO boss Wayne McCrae has been booted from the company he founded by his Chinese backers.

The end for the colourful head of the Gold Coast-based copper hopeful came in a bluntly worded ASX filing yesterday.

Mr McCrae had resigned as chairman, chief executive and director of CuDeco.

He will be replaced by CuDeco director Peter Hutchison, as interim managing director, and fellow director David Taylor, who takes on the role of interim chairman.

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Wayne McCrae speaks to shareholders at the CuDeco AGM

Jiang Yongmin, a representative of the Chinese Government-backed Sinosteel, one of the three major shareholders whose revolt led to Mr McCrae’s exit from the company, will join the board as a non-executive director.

Mr McCrae had only agreed to resign if the Chinese investors guaranteed to front the funds to ensure CuDeco’s Rocklands copper processing plant near Cloncurry reaches production.

The three shareholders — New Apex, China Oceanwide International Investment and Sinosteel together hold almost 35 per cent of the company.

They had agreed to provide a short-term loan to keep CuDeco afloat but only if Mr McCrae resigned as boss of the company.

His resignation came after the three major shareholders agreed to cough up $1 million each to provide a $3 million short-term loan to CuDeco, with the company expecting to enter into the loan agreements “shortly”.

CuDeco said it also plans to increase its existing loan facility with China’s Minsheng Bank to US$100 million, and the bank would approve the increase after the Chinese shareholders agreed to provide letters of support.

CuDeco said it was confident it would now have sufficient cash to get the Rock-lands project into production, but without its founder at the helm.

The Chinese investors had lost patience with the maverick McCrae when CuDeco’s shares remained in a lengthy suspension after shareholders rejected a plan for the company to raise additional funding through a placement to another Chinese group, Focus Sun Holdings.

Yesterday in a statement they said “the major shareholders no longer have confidence in his ability to successfully manage the company’s development.”

The end will be bitter- sweet for the 67-year-old straight-talking chairman of the mining company he led for a decade.

In January, Mr McCrae told the Gold Coast Bulletin he guaranteed the mine he once boasted was “one of the richest copper mines on the globe” would be producing copper this year.

And then he planned to exit the industry.

“We will be in production (with Rocklands) this year, no doubt, 100 per cent,” he said. “I’ll get Rocklands over the line and that will be it for me, sayonara.”

Mr McCrae yesterday was unavailable for comment.

Shares in CuDeco, which have been suspended from trade since late June, are expected to resume trading on Monday.

They last traded at $1.70.