A new CEO for zinc miner, Zinifex in old an Aussie mining hand named Andrew Michelmore who ran WMC Resources in its dying days, and then a big Russian miner for a couple of years.
The appointment gives lie to the strong rumours around yesterday that once again had Zinifex and Oxiana getting married.
The reports saw very active buying of ZFX shares which shook off two weeks of falls to rise by more than $1.60 to end at $16.09, after touching $16.48 at one stage. in contrast, OXR shares were up around 6c at $4.16 as investors saw the logic in two companies merging.
High volumes of both shares were traded: more than 30.6 million Oxiana (OXR) shares and 19.9 million Zinifex (ZFX) shares.
Zinifex shares later told the ASX, in answer to a query about the big price move, that it had nothing new to add.
Whether the boards or managers see it is another thing. Zinifex is capitalised at a touch of $7 billion (remember it has more than $1.7 billion in cash from the float of its share of the processing assets of Nester) and Oxiana is valued at more than $6.1 billion.
Zinifex has strong zinc, lead, some silver and other metals, OXR is predominantly in copper and gold, but has other metals interests, including uranium and nickel.
According to Citigroup this week, zinc is in oversupply, lead isn't. While world copper prices up to yesterday had fallen to a 7 month low, while gold was strong and nickel well below the record highs of mid year.
Zinifex said in its statement to the ASX that Mr Michelmore commences immediately "with the implementation of the board's growth strategy and the familiarisation of the company and its people. He will assume full-time operational responsibility from 1 February 2008."
Mr Michelmore was CEO of Russian energy and aluminium group, EN+ Group and before that he was CEO of WMC Resources Limited for more than two years. He was a casualty of the BHP Billiton takeover.
Zinifex had its best day of trading for three months on the chat of a possible merger.
Brokers said the story was that Oxiana wanted to buy Zinifex in a four-for-one scrip bid plus $4 in cash. That would value ZFX at around $19 a share, and boost the market value to more $10 billion.
The reason why trading was hectic because if a deal emerges, hedge funds, who are now short of trading opportunities around the world, would be looking for another bid to emerge, say from a group like Xstrata (which is swallowing Australian coal and nickel assets) or Teck Cominco of Canada, which is the world leader in zinc, or even CVRD of Brazil, or a big Russian or Chinese group.
Both companies weren't commenting and it's not the first time this year that this story has floated its way to the top of market chatter.
But market traders are now sensitive to all sorts of whispers after the move by BHP on Rio in a $150 billion offer that has set the market for merger rumours alight.
BHP and Rio shares were both sold off heavily yesterday afternoon after a burst of initial optimism.
BHP shares fell more than 90c to $41.29 on more than 20 million shares and Rio was knocked down more than $2.20 to $135.25 on solid volume.
Hedge funds associated with or clients of UBS have picked up 5% of Rio, a sign the traders are taking positions ahead of an improved offer from BHP.
But world copper prices plunged overnight after their sharp rise the day before on an earthquake in Chile.
And the Australian dollar dropped sharply to below 89 USc as oil and gold prices fell.
