ENRC shareholders vote four directors off board after bitter wrangle

A bitter boardroom battle at mining group Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation (ENRC) boiled over on Wednesday when the Kazakh-based company's shareholders voted overwhelmingly for the departure of four directors, including City veteran Sir Richard Sykes.

The FTSE 100 listed company said 84% of shareholders had voted against the reappointment of Sykes – ENRC's senior independent director – and Kenneth Olisa. ENRC said Sykes, Olisa and two other directors had left the company "with immediate effect".

Chairman Johannes Sittard said ENRC had already begun a "comprehensive review" of its corporate governance. The company said it would be "mindful of the need to ensure that [the board] does not become so large as to be unwieldy".

The board, which until today had consisted of 14 directors, half of them independent, had been embroiled in a bitter dispute about the controversial purchase of a copper mining licence in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Concerns about ENRC's corporate governance has dragged down the miner's share price. Persistent rumours had suggested that several board members had lost confidence in chairman Sittard, a former chief executive of the company, and were planning a coup.

In a letter, Olisa described the board as "dysfunctional" and said it had "not really made the transition from people who used to know the founders to a proper public company board". He said last night: "No one has done anything dodgy, no one has walked off with assets. It has been an argument over who is in charge: is it the board, or is it the three founders?"

The oligarchs who set up ENRC – Alexander Machkevich, Alijan Ibragimov and Patokh Chodiev – own 43% of the company. Kazakhmys, another FTSE 100 company, owns 26% and the Kazakh government 12%, leaving a free float of less than 20%.

Gavin Wood, analyst at Arbuthnot, said: "In itself, it is negative the senior non-executive director [Sykes] has been voted off, but it could have been worse." There had been suggestions of a much larger boardroom walkout.

Current chief executive Felix Vulis announced his planned departure in February.

ENRC's shares closed down 2% at 811.9p.