Great Panther CEO steps down

Great Panther Mining Ltd. [GPR-TSX, GPL-NYSE American] said Rob Henderson is stepping down as its President and CEO for personal reasons, effective immediately. He is also resigning from the company’s board of directors.

Henderson is being succeeded on an interim basis by Alan Hair, the current Chair of the Board of Directors. A transition plan to the appointment of a permanent CEO will be developed in due course, the company said in a press release.

Great Panther is a low-cost precious metals producer with a strong leverage to the price of silver and assets in Brazil, Mexico and Peru, including three gold and silver mines, an advanced development project, as well as a large land package with district-scale potential. Key assets include the Tucano mine in Brazil and Topia mine in Mexico.

The Tucano gold mine is an established mining operation, consisting of eight open pits, the Urucum North underground project, a processing plant and tailings dam.

“As Chair and interim CEO, I look forward to working more closely with the senior executive team and the board to continue to realize the potential of Tucano by returning it to steady-state production and advancing the exploration of our highly prospective land package in Brazil, including the development of our Urucum North underground project,” Hair said.

“I am confident in our management team’s ability to deliver on our strategy for all Great Panther’s assets,” he said.

Hair went on to say that Henderson navigated the company through a challenging environment, brought on by a global pandemic and operational issues at Tucano.

In 2021, the company reported consolidated metal production of 105,006 gold equivalent (AuEq) ounces, including 87,054 ounces of gold and 1.2 million ounces of silver. In an operational update released in January, 2022, the company said lower production and higher costs in 2021 were attributed to geotechnical issues resulting from wall pit stability in the UCS open pit (at Tucano) and additional remediation work needed to ensure safety for workers as well as operational issues due to low contractor performance at Tucano.

The company said a letter of intent has been signed with a new open pit mining contractor for Tucano to operate in parallel with the existing contractor. It said the new contractor is a Brazilian company using a new mining fleet, which will contribute to an improvement in overall mine performance.

In 2022, consolidated AuEq production from the Tucano and Topia mines is expected to be in the range of 100,000 to 119,000 AuEq ounces.

On Friday, Great Panther Mining shares were unchanged at 28.5 cents and currently trade in a 52-week range of $1.34 and 24 cents.