Ferrexpo Plc (LON: FXPO) Chief Executive Officer Kostyantin Zhevago will step down temporarily to handle personal matters. Zhevago, said he will need to attend to business in Ukraine about one business he owned till 2015.
The Swiss based mining and commodity trading company has specialized in iron ore trading based in Ukraine.
According to reports, Zhevago holds a 50% stake in Ferrexpo and will take time away from the company within the coming weeks.
However, he will will remain on the board as a non-independent, non-executive director as stated by the company.
FTSE 250-listed Ferrexpo said Chief Financial Officer Chris Mawe has been appointed as acting chief executive.
Earlier this month, Zhevago had made Bloomberg news headlines.
Zhevago was added to an international wanted list after failure to attend for questioning about business commitments.
According to Bloomberg, Ukrainian investigators believe he has committed “large-scale” money laundering and embezzlement.
Zhevago “strongly denies any allegations of wrongdoing”, the company had said in response.
Ferrexpo Chair Steve Lucus said on Monday: “The board, including Zhevago, believes that this temporary change of leadership is necessary and in the interests of all shareholders to enable Zhevago to focus on on-going matters in Ukraine without impacting the company’s operations. Zhevago continues to have the full support of the board.”
This is not the first time that Ferrexpo has been plugged into allegations of unethical corporate practices.
In response, Ferrexpo set up an independent committee to look into allegations that payments made by the company to Ukrainian charity Blooming Land were misused.
The decision to appoint Mawe as a replacement comes swiftly. Ferrexpo have now become very aware of the bad public media image that these allegations cause.
Currently, shares of Ferrexpo Plc are trading at 130.6p per share seeing a 2.2% fall during Monday trading. 28/10/19 10:53BST.
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