DAVID Brown could step down from Kuvimba Mining House, said Bloomberg News, a development that would deliver a blow to a firm the Zimbabwean government hopes will be part of its economic revival.
The 58-year-old South African mining veteran has told Kuvimba stakeholders he aims to step away from executive positions. Brown declined to comment on talks regarding his post at Kuvimba when contacted by Bloomberg News.
“It has always been my intention to transition from executive roles to non-executive roles,” Brown said in a separate e-mailed response to the newswire. “When I joined it was always understood that this was the process I wanted to follow.”
Bloomberg News reported in May that until at least the end of 2020, Kuvimba was connected to Kudakwashe Tagwirei, a Zimbabwean businessman and presidential adviser sanctioned for corruption by the US last year.
Brown said at the time he was unaware Tagwirei had an interest in Sotic – the company that owned some of the largest assets claimed by Kuvimba, including major platinum group metals and gold mines.
Sotic is backed in part by Almas Global Opportunity Fund SPC, an investment firm registered in the Cayman Islands. It’s owned by Almas Capital, a company that is in turn run by a businessman called Amardeep Sharma.
Brown said he hadn’t been hired by Tagwirei to run Sotic and now Kuvimba. He declined to name Kuvimba’s private shareholders – but denied that Tagwirei owns any of it. Brown told Miningmx in February that: “He (Tagwirei) is absolutely not connected with us”.
Bloomberg News said that appointing Brown’s replacement would “… highlight questions of control and ownership.”
