Reuters reported that iron ore mining group African Minerals surprised the market with the abrupt departure of both chief executive officer and chief financial officer and said it was scrapping expansion plans to focus on existing operations.

Its shares fell almost 15% despite what some analysts said could prove a positive as the company concentrates on its Sierra Leone mine, Tonkolili.

Jefferies analysts said that from the onset it was clear that (Chief Executive Keith) Mr Calder’s broader ambition was to grow African Minerals into a diversified miner across West Africa in the near term. Perhaps our greatest concern for African Minerals in recent months was that the company would move too far and too fast into M&A.

Mr Calder, in the job for just over a year will be replaced immediately by Mr Bernard Pryor, a board director who had been a senior executive at Anglo American and was a director of Adastra Minerals until 2006 developing the Kolwezi deposit in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Mr Frank Timis executive chairman of African Minerals said that “Mr Pryor shares the same view as the rest of the Board, that African Minerals must first focus on consistent production and lowering costs and thereafter develop further growth.”