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

Namibia Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country on the west coast of Southern Africa. Its borders include the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south; in the no ...

. Its operations include the

Matchless mine The Matchless Mine is a historic mine located in Lake County, Colorado. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and is part of the National Mining Hall of Fame and Museum. History The Matchless Mine made Horace Tabor's for ...

, Otjihase mine, 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 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, Unlisted Securities Market (USM) that had been in opera ...

. 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