Mick Davis

Sir Michael Lawrence "Mick" Davis (born 15 February 1958) is a South African/British businessman. He served as the Chief Executive (CEO) of Xstrata plc, an Anglo-Swiss multinational mining company, until its merger with Glencore in 2013. After leaving Xstrata, he formed the mining venture, X2 Resources.^[1]

Early life and education

Mick Davis was born to a South African Jewish family^[2] on 15 February 1958. He was educated at Theodor Herzl School, Port Elizabeth, South Africa. He has a bachelor of commerce degree from Rhodes University and is a qualified accountant.^[3]

Career

Davis was a senior manager with the accountants Peat Marwick Mitchell & Co from 1980–1986. Davis was an executive director of the South African state-owned Eskom, one of the world’s largest electricity utilities, before joining Gencor Ltd in 1994. He served as executive chairman of Ingwe Coal Corporation Ltd from 1995, until appointed in July 1997 as Chief Financial Officer and an executive director of Billiton plc. He served as Chief Executive of Xstrata from 2001^[4] but left in 2013, after the company was taken over by Glencore. He subsequently formed the mining venture, X2 Resources, with former colleagues including former Xstrata finance director Trevor Reid and executives Thras Moraitis, Andrew Latham, Ian Pearce and Benny Levene.^[1][5]

Mick has extensive capital markets and corporate transactions experience. During his career, he has raised almost US$40 billion from global capital markets and successfully completed over US$120 billion of corporate transactions. Some of his successes are the creation of the Ingwe Coal Corporation in South Africa; the listing of Billiton on the London Stock Exchange;^[6] the merger of BHP and Billiton into the largest diversified mining company in the world;^[7] the initial public offering of Xstrata plc on the London Stock Exchange in 2002^[8] and Xstrata’s subsequent acquisitions of MIM Holdings^[9] and Falconbridge Limited.,^[10] amongst others and most recently the successful merger of Xstrata and Glencore.^[11] Early in 2015 he and his partners successfully closed the X2 Resources fund after raising almost US$6 billion from a combination of sovereign wealth, pension and private equity funds.^[12]

Charitable work

Sir Mick is President of the Council of Members and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Jewish Leadership Council of the United Kingdom,^[13] the umbrella body of the largest Jewish charities and Institutions in the UK responsible for the strategic imperatives of UK Jewry, and is Chairman of the Holocaust Memorial Commission of the United Kingdom.^[14] Mick is a trustee of the Foundation and Friends of the Royal Botanic Gardens,^[15] Kew, which supports the work of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Mick is also a member of the Brookings International Advisory Council^[16] and a trustee of the Institute of National Security Studies.^[17] In February 2016, Mick was appointed Co-Treasurer of the Conservative Party.

Personal life

His wife Barbara is a solicitor.^[15] They live in London with their three children, Sarah, Ronit and Eitan.^[18][19]

In the 2015 Queen's Birthday Honours, he was appointed a Knight Bachelor 'for services to Holocaust Commemoration and Education', and therefore granted the title 'sir'.^[20]

He holds an Honorary Doctorate from Bar Ilan University.

References