The company said Ball’s departure was a “mutually agreed upon decision”.

Ball said leading the company had been a privilege. BC chairman Tony Kiernan said Ball had been an outstanding MD over the past 3.5 years, and chief financial officer before that.

“During this period, Morgan has overseen and managed material company growth across two operations whilst more recently overseeing and implementing the difficult but necessary decision to place our Nullagine joint venture into temporary suspension,” Kiernan said.

“Despite the challenges faced in the iron ore industry over the last two years, Morgan leaves BC Iron with a clean balance sheet and the opportunity to benefit into the future when the commodities cycle inevitably turns.”

BC completed a takeover of IOH in the second half of 2014 and its current focus is the development of the Buckland iron ore project, which was picked up in the deal.

Since the takeover, Vorster has been group executive mining at Australian Capital Equity, and CEO of API Management, developer of the West Pilbara iron ore project.

He formally starts as CEO on Monday on a salary of $A490,000 per annum as well as short and long-term incentives.

Ball will remain as a consultant to the company during the transition.

BC shares were unchanged at 16c today.