Scissor-Hands CEO Is Hero for Chile and Villain for Copper Bulls
- Codelco is beating many private-sector rivals in cost cutting
- State miner still churning out near-record levels of the metal
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When soft-spoken septuagenarian Nelson Pizarro took the helm of Chile’s state copper behemoth in mid-2014 he noticed how happy people were at one of its underperforming mines. So he removed all the key managers. The result: costs fell and output reached capacity for the first time.
“A sense of vulnerability was lacking,” he said in an interview from Santiago, where executives from the world’s biggest mining companies are meeting this week. “People must understand the company’s financial health.”