Weatherly International plc is a British mining company which owns several copper mines in

Namibia Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and ea ...

. Its operations include the

Matchless mine The Matchless Mine is located in Lake County, Colorado. It made Horace Tabor's fortune. His wife, Baby Doe Tabor, died in the superintendent's cabin. The mine is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It is part of the National Mining ...

Otjihase mine Mining is the biggest contributor to Namibia's economy in terms of revenue. It accounts for 25% of the country's income. Its contribution to the gross domestic product (10.4% in 2009, 8.5% in 2010, 9.5% in 2011, 12.3% in 2012, 13.2% in 2013, 11.6% ...

, Kombat mine, and Tschudi mine. In 2006, Weatherly acquired the operations of ''Ongopolo Mining & Processing Ltd''. At the time, the company was backed by hedge funds including ''RAB Capital plc'' and ''Matterhorn Investment Management'', which together owned about one third of the company. In 2008, due to declining copper prices, Weatherly closed two of its mines. In 2009, Weatherly sold a controlling stake the company to the ''East China Mineral Exploration and Development Bureau'' in order to fund the reopening of their mines. In 2010, Weatherly sold the Tsumeb smelter to ''Dundee Precious Metals Inc''. In 2011, Weatherly and ''East China Mineral Exploration and Development Bureau'' announced a joint venture named ''China Africa Resources Namibia'' to develop the

Berg Aukas Berg may refer to: People *Berg (surname), a surname (including a list of people with the name) *Berg Ng (born 1960), Hong Kong actor * Berg (footballer) (born 1989), Brazilian footballer Former states *Berg (state), county and duchy of the Holy ...

lead/zinc/vanadium mine, which was previously open from 1959 to 1978. This subsidiary was also listed on the

Alternative Investment Market AIM (formerly the Alternative Investment Market) is a sub-market of the London Stock Exchange that was launched on 19 June 1995 as a replacement to the previous Unlisted Securities Market (USM) that had been in operation since 1980. It allows ...

. In December 2016, interest in the Berg Aukas mine was returned to shareholders, and the ''China Africa Resources Namibia'' changed its name to ''Pembridge Resources''. Weatherly was traded on the UK

for some time, but trading has been suspended since 2015, following news of metallurgical problems at the Tschudi mine. Following deferred loan repayments in March 2018, CEO Craig Thomas announced his resignation from the company. Around this time Weatherly entered

insolvency In accounting, insolvency is the state of being unable to pay the debts, by a person or company ( debtor), at maturity; those in a state of insolvency are said to be ''insolvent''. There are two forms: cash-flow insolvency and balance-sheet i ...

. As of January 2020, workers at the Tschudi mine expected the mine to close by March due to Weatherly's lack of funds.

References

{{reflist Mining companies of the United Kingdom Mining in Namibia Companies listed on the Alternative Investment Market