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The chief executive of billionaire Andrew Forrest’s Fortescue Metals Group has unexpectedly quit less than six months after taking on the role.
Fiona Hicks abruptly resigned from the company on Sunday. Fortescue said in a statement she had “made a joint decision with the Fortescue Board to leave the company”. She has been replaced by Dino Otranto, who was chief operating officer at the metals group.
Hicks was poached from oil and gas producer Woodside Energy last year to run the iron-ore miner’s core operations and started the job in February.
She was tasked with leading Australia’s third-largest miner by market capitalisation, behind BHP and Rio Tinto, into a new era, exploring growth in Africa and critical minerals. Fortescue also had plans to develop green hydrogen through the Fortescue Energy division.
Her departure came after a gala event held in the mineral-rich Pilbara region of Western Australia on Saturday to celebrate Fortescue’s 20-year anniversary. The company confirmed Hicks was in attendance at the event, where Forrest spoke about the progress of the business against its larger rivals.
Fortescue shares dropped 5 per cent after the company announced Hicks’s departure and issued full-year results, including a dividend cut and large writedown, on Monday.
The chief executive’s exit is the latest in a series of senior departures at Fortescue and its subsidiaries over the past three years. Longstanding finance chief Ian Wells left this year.
Neither Forrest, who is executive chair of Fortescue, nor Hicks attended an earnings call on Monday. Otranto and Mark Hutchinson, chief executive of Fortescue Energy, fielded questions instead.
Hutchinson repeatedly pointed to the formal statement that described the departure of Hicks as “friendly and mutual” and said the board, which includes former British Olympian Sebastian Coe, had unanimously voted to “expedite” Otranto’s promotion.
Paul Young, an analyst at Goldman Sachs, said on the call that the company needed to provide more details on Hicks’s departure, pointing to the share price drop. “I do believe that shareholders deserve a better explanation,” he said.
Fortescue was the latest large miner to cut its dividend following BHP, Rio Tinto and Anglo American. The company reduced its payout to A$1.75 ($1.12) a share, a 15 per cent year-on-year decrease, which reflected a 23 per cent drop in net profit to $4.8bn. Revenue fell 3 per cent to $16.9bn.
Fortescue’s profit was hit by a $726mn writedown of the value of its Iron Bridge mine in Pilbara, which only started shipments in July, due to higher costs.
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