Meurs leaves Fortescue for church role

Fortescue Metals Group’s development director has resigned to take up an international full-time role with the Mormon church.

Peter Meurs has resigned his board and executive positions to take on a role with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, after serving with the iron ore giant for six years.

Prior to his tenure at Fortescue, Mr Meurs was managing director of WorleyParsons.

In a final director’s interest notice released today, Mr Meurs held about 9.8 million shares in the business which, at Fortescue’s opening share price of $2.98, is worth about $29.2 million.

As previously reported by Business News in October last year, Mr Meurs’ reported shareholding in Fortescue dropped from 26.2 million shares to just 9.5 million because of the impact of a complex executive shares scheme.

“Peter lives and breathes innovation and has empowered those around him through his ability to passionately articulate a clear vision,” chairman Andrew Forrest said in a statement today.

“He leaves us with that embedded culture and intellectual property firmly in place and it will be his enduring legacy.

“Now with excellence in performance having moved from development to operations, that strong culture developed and fostered by Peter and the leadership team remains as strong and as fruitful as ever.”

Fortescue chief executive Nev Power said Mr Meurs brought tremendous energy and expertise to the company.

“His legacy includes our differentiating capability of developing world class assets and infrastructure on budget and in record time,” Mr Power said.

“His ability to inspire teams to deliver against stretch targets has delivered outstanding results, and we have all benefited from his clarity of thinking, passion for our business and strong values-based leadership.

“We all wish Peter and his wife Maxine the very best as they embark together on an exciting journey of humble and dedicated service to their church and community.”

Fortescue’s group manager development, Simon Carter, is responsible for the company’s exploration, development and project portfolio and will continue to manage key projects and establishment of new ventures for the company.

Fortescue shares closed 2.3 per cent higher to $3.11 each.