Davis takes the money, not the job

Instead he will step down from Xstrata, allowing Glencore's chief executive Ivan Glasenberg to take on the job.

Davis has agreed to act as consultant to the combined group until 30 June in order to support the integration process. He will be paid £4,6m when he leaves and will retain the right to use the company's jet.

A number of Xstrata's top people intend stepping down including the chief financial officer Trevor Reid, Xstrata's copper division head Charlie Sartain‚ nickel boss Ian Pearce and Loutjie Smit‚ the interim chief executive of the alloys division.

In addition, the executive general manager for strategy and corporate affairs Thras Moraitis‚ and Xstrata's chief legal counsel Benny Levene will also step down but will act as consultants for the merged company for up to six months.

Xstrata's chairman Sir John Bond said: "The building of Xstrata over the past decade from modest origins to a FTSE 20 global diversified mining major has been one of the outstanding entrepreneurial achievements of our time. Based on a vision about the impending mining super cycle and the opportunities it created for a nimble new mining group‚ it was the exceptional leadership‚ drive and business acumen of Mick Davis and his team that turned this vision into reality."

Mick Davis said: "I look back on the past eleven years at Xstrata with enormous satisfaction. I have had the great pleasure and privilege of working with a talented and committed group of people. Together we were able to build a US$50bn global company from a US$500m minnow.

"We are delivering significant returns to our shareholders, have created a culture that empowered individuals to perform and identify opportunities to create value‚ while making a positive and lasting contribution to the communities and countries in which we work," he added.