SolGold hits fresh troubles as finance boss Ayten Saridas leaves only weeks after failed raising
The turmoil at copper darling SolGold shows no sign of ending, with newly appointed CFO Ayten Saridas stepping down after only six weeks in the job.
SolGold has struck fresh troubles, losing newly appointed chief financial officer Ayten Saridas only weeks after the would-be copper producer was forced to withdraw plans to raise cash in London.
SolGold “tested the market” for a significant raising in July but was forced to pull its attempts to raise fresh cash on the London market amid renewed tensions between the company’s fractious shareholders groups, according to comments made by chief executive Darryl Cuzzubbo on the sidelines of the Diggers and Dealers conference last week.
The company has now lost the services of Ms Saridas, who only started her role as the company’s chief financial officer at the end of June. SolGold non-executive director Keith Marshall stepped down from the company’s board on Thursday, with former exploration boss Jason Ward also leaving the company.
Mr Marshall was one of a suite of SolGold directors that saw a substantial shareholder backlash against his re-election at the company’s annual shareholder meeting in December, amid a backlash at delays to the delivery of the pre-feasibility study for its Cascabel copper-gold project in Ecuador.
Mr Ward, one of the company’s early founders, stepped off the SolGold board in May as the company moved to beef-up its management team in Ecuador following the discovery in late 2021 of an invoice fraud allegedly committed by an employee that cost the company more $US4.5m ($6.3m) over four years.
At the time SolGold said Mr Ward would continue as the company’s head of exploration as well as “representing the company with local communities”.
On Thursday SolGold said Mr Ward’s resignation as its exploration boss was prompted by his decision to return to live in Australia, and the long-term SolGold executive would remain as an “adviser to the company”.
SolGold said Mr Marshall would also remain an adviser to the technical committee overseeing the development of SolGold’s Cascabel Project.
The loss of Ms Saridas is a more significant blow to the company, given the fanfare around the appointment of the experienced finance executive on her recruitment in May.
Her departure comes only weeks after SolGold shares tumbled in the wake of a failed capital raising. SolGold has about $25m in the bank, Mr Cuzzubbo said last week, enough to fund its operations until the end of the year.
Ms Saridas will be replaced on an interim basis by former Newcastle Coal Infrastructure Group chief financial officer Keith Pollocks, who is believed to be one of the unsuccessful candidates during the company’s previous search for a finance boss.
It is the second time in two years that Ms Saridas has left a senior executive role within months of starting her new job.
She quit as the Oil Search chief executive in late 2020 after only three months at the oil and gas major, and last year launched legal action against the company amid claims of bullying by former chief executive Kieran Wulff.
That legal action remains before the courts, and Oil Search has since merged with Santos in this year’s blockbuster consolidation round of the Australian oil and gas sector.
The ongoing turmoil at SolGold threatens to overshadow the company’s work developing Cascabel, regarded as one of the hottest emerging properties in the copper space.
Interest in SolGold has been generated not just by the size and grade of Cascabel, which is tipped to produce up to 210,000 tonnes of copper a year at peak output in the mid-2030s, but also by the competitive tension on its register between BHP and Newcrest.
Both own about 13.5 per cent of the emerging miner, and one or the other is heavily tipped to make a play for SolGold, or play a major role in funding the copper project in exchange for a share of the copper mine, which is likely to cost about $US2.7bn to develop.
But SolGold has also been plagued with tensions between the two mining majors at its other shareholders, particularly those associated with former boss SolGold boss Nicholas Mather and DGR Global.
BHP and Newcrest are believed to have played a major role in forcing Mr Mather to step down from an executive role at SolGold after a falling out over the debt-focused funding structure he had adopted.
More Coverage
