Having already crashed the wedding party, Teck Cominco (TEK.SV.B-T, TCKBF-O) has now poached Falconbridge‘s (FAL.LV-T, FAL-N) chief operating officer.
Peter Kukielski will assume the roles of executive vice-president and chief operating officer at Teck beginning on July 15. His responsibilities will include mining and metallurgical operations across all commodities, marketing and sales, and project engineering and management.
“I am delighted that Peter Kukielski is joining Teck Cominco. Peter brings a wealth of strategic, operations, project management as well as international experience to our company, said Teck CEO Don Lindsay in a prepared statement. “I congratulate Peter on his appointment and welcome him to our executive management team.”
The diversified miner also announced the retirement of its senior vice-president Michael Lipkewich after 36 years of service.
Falconbridge will immediately replace Kukielski with Ian Pearce. Pearce joined Falconbridge in August 2003 as senior vice-president of projects and engineering.
The personnel changes come just days after Teck launched an unsolicited, $17.8-billion bid for Inco (N-T, N-N). One condition of Teck’s offer is that Inco axe its planned $12-billion acquisition of Falconbridge. That deal has been hung up on regulatory reviews. Inco has extended its offer three times, currently until the end of June.
Falconbridge said it was surprised that Teck would interfere in its transaction and would “review the implications of what they have done.”
Shares in Falconbridge were 74 at $52.75, while Teck was off 37 at $72.40 in morning trading in Toronto following the news on May12. For its part, Inco was 69 lower at $73.85.
Be the first to comment on "Teck pinches Falco COO"