Vedanta Resources share price gains, company appoints Tom Albanese as CEO

Vedanta Resources Plc announced that Mr. Tom Albanese was appointed to Chief Executive Officer of the company as a successor to Mahendra Singh Mehta, who is retiring. The new CEO of Vedanta is expected to take over the position on April 1st.

Anil Agarwal, who is the Chairman of the company said for the Wall Street Journal: “Tom Albaneses skills and experience in leading world-class mining companies will be of great value in supporting our strategic objective of creating sustainable long-term value for all our stakeholders.”

As reported by the Financial Times, Citis analysts had shared their opinion that the election of Tom Albanese “should help to globalise the business and remove this perception.” They also said: “A key concern will be whether Mr Albanese would have enough powers, given the controlling stake held by the Agarwal family. It is a step change for the leadership to be handed to someone outside the group, and the market is likely to wait and see if the new CEO is provided with enough cards to play.”

Mr. Tom Albanese has experience as being a Chief Executive Officer of Rio Tinto Plc for almost six years – from May 2007 to January 2013. He was forced to leave the position in 2013 following a contraction in the global mining sector that cost the leaders position of several other chief executives in the industry, among which were Anglo Americans Cynthia Carroll and BHP Billitons Marius Kloppers.

Rio Tinto Plc went through a crisis in January last year as the company announced a big write-down on one of its deals that was considered to be of great significance – the coal assets acquisition of Riversdale in Mozambique. After stepping down as a CEO of Rio Tinto, Mr. Albanese became an adviser of Vedanta in September 2013.

Mr. Albanese said for the Financial Times: “This is a CEO role but Anil will be in that executive chairman role when it comes to M&A and strategy. This is a business that wants to grow. The chairman and I have a very clear understanding of our vision for the business… we want to use this partnership between the two of us to make this business improve.”

Vedanta Resources Plc surged 3.32% in London by 12:36 GMT to 885.50 pence, marking a one-year change of -24.38%. The company is valued at 2.28 billion pounds.