Founding Azure Minerals managing director and chief executive Tony Rovira has stepped down from the company, following this year’s acquisition by Hancock Prospecting and SQM.
Founding Azure Minerals managing director and chief executive Tony Rovira has stepped down from the company, following this year’s acquisition by Hancock Prospecting and SQM.
Mr Rovira oversaw Azure from its listing in 2003 to delisting in 2024 – when it was acquired by the Gina Rinehart-led Hancock and Chilean lithium giant SQM for $1.7 billion.
Azure’s share price soared in its latter years of listing. The company entered 2023 at 22c per share and was trading above $4 late in November of the same year.
Its ultimate sale came at price of $3.70 per share.
Price aside, the sale of Azure was notable for a few reasons.
The flagship Andover project in the Pilbara, prospective for lithium, was the catalyst for a sale made before a lithium mineral resource was defined.
The sale was made off the back of outstanding exploration results alone.
The project was 60 per cent owned by Azure, in a joint venture with a private entity affiliated with project vendor and legendary prospector Mark Creasy.
And Azure had previously focused its exploration on the nickel-copper-cobalt potential of the project, pivoting to lithium after defining multiple nickel resources at the site.
Andover was picked up by Azure during the Covid year of 2020, when borders were constrained in Western Australia.
The company had previously focused its exploration efforts on Mexico where it spent many years working up projects, before demobilising in 2020.
As the quality of the project became apparent, Azure sold off its Mexican assets and honed in on Andover.
Mr Rovira accepted the Deal of the Year award at the Diggers & Dealers Mining Forum earlier this month, noting on acceptance that it was unusual for an acquired target to accept the award.
In a brief statement today, he said he was proud of Azure’s achievements and that Andover was in good hands under the SH Mining joint venture of Hancock and SQM.
“I am very proud to have led a team that achieved so much for Azure and its shareholders,” he said.
“I am also pleased with how we are successfully integrating the Azure operations into SH Mining, and I wish Azure every success in the development of the Andover lithium project.”
Mr Rovira was previously a general manager at Jubilee Mines and was a key figure in the discovery of the Cosmos nickel project near Leinster during the late 1990s.
Having accumulated a large shareholding in the company, Mr Rovira made more than $24 million from the sale of Azure Minerals.
The price of lithium has plummeted over the course of 2024, with lithium carbonate values down around 80 per cent from their November 2022 peak.
