Southern Copper Marks 30 Years on NYSE After CEO’s Death

Business: Mexico/Peru

As Southern Copper marks 30 years on the New York Stock Exchange in 2026, the milestone is shadowed by the sudden death of the executive who ran the company for most of that history, President and CEO Óscar González Rocha.

An open-pit copper operation of the kind that anchors Southern Copper’s business in Peru and Mexico.

30 Years on the NYSE

Southern Copper Corporation’s common shares began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on the first business day of 1996, January 2, under the ticker PCU, alongside a parallel listing on the Lima Stock Exchange, according to the company’s official corporate timeline. The stock traded as Southern Peru Copper Corporation before the enterprise was renamed Southern Copper Corporation later that year, and the NYSE ticker was changed to SCCO in 2010 to reflect the company’s broader footprint across Peru and Mexico, per the company’s history page.

The 2026 anniversary lands three decades after that debut, a run that spans multiple copper cycles, the 1999 change of control when Grupo México acquired ASARCO and became Southern Copper’s majority owner, and a transformation from a Peru-focused miner into an integrated producer spanning open-pit mining, smelting and refining across two countries. Southern Copper’s own investor materials still list “Listed on NYSE since: 1996” as a core corporate fact.

Grupo México, through its mining holding arm Americas Mining Corporation, now owns about 88.9% of Southern Copper’s outstanding shares, a concentration that makes the company a “controlled company” under NYSE governance rules, according to Southern Copper’s 2026 proxy statement filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The remaining roughly 11% free float is held by international investors who have tracked the stock through three decades of listing.

Southern Copper’s Growth

The scale of Southern Copper’s expansion since its NYSE debut shows up starkly in its balance sheet. Market capitalization, under $1 billion in the late 1990s according to StockAnalysis.com data, has climbed to a range of roughly $141 billion to $162 billion during 2026, with the stock hitting an all-time closing high of $215.54 on March 2, 2026, per Macrotrends figures. By early August 2026, MarketBeat pegged the company’s market cap at $143.75 billion.

Operating results have kept pace. Southern Copper reported record net sales of $13.42 billion for 2025, up 17.4% from 2024’s $11.43 billion, with fourth-quarter 2025 net sales also setting a quarterly record at $3.87 billion, according to the company’s SEC-filed earnings release. The momentum has continued into 2026: first-quarter net income hit a record $1.577 billion, up 67% year-on-year, and second-quarter net income reached a record $1.67 billion, up 72%, as London Metal Exchange copper prices averaged $6.04 per pound, a 30% year-on-year jump, the company said on its Q2 2026 earnings call.

Copper output itself has been more mixed, reflecting declining ore grades at some mature mines. Total copper production came in at roughly 956,000 tons in 2025, a slight year-on-year decline, but the company has since raised its 2026 guidance to 917,000 tons from an earlier plan of 910,000 tons. Management’s longer-range target points to more than 1.6 million tons of annual copper output by 2033 or 2034, as growth projects in Peru and Mexico come online, according to the company’s Q2 2026 earnings call transcript.

The Death of Óscar González Rocha

Southern Copper disclosed on April 13, 2026, that its President and Chief Executive Officer, Óscar González Rocha, had died unexpectedly six days earlier, on April 7, at age 80. “The Company’s Board of Directors intends to appoint a successor or interim Chief Executive Officer in the near future,” the company said in the 8-K filed with the SEC, a notice that was also confirmed through Reuters and Dow Jones wire reports.

González Rocha, a civil engineer trained at Mexico’s National Autonomous University (UNAM), had spent what the company later called a “distinguished 50-year career” inside the Grupo México family of businesses. He became a director of Southern Copper’s board in December 1999, following Grupo México’s acquisition of ASARCO, and was named the company’s President and Chief Executive Officer on October 21, 2004, a post he held for more than two decades. He also served as a director of Grupo México since 2002 and led Americas Mining Corporation, the group’s mining holding company.

Regional outlets covered the loss as a major event for Latin American mining: Peru’s Infobae and RPP Noticias reported his death as that of “one of the most influential figures in mining in Peru and the region,” while Mexican outlet El Imparcial described him as a key figure who “drove copper production and modernization” across the sector. Southern Copper’s later proxy statement to shareholders called him “the cornerstone of our company’s growth,” crediting him with positioning the firm as a leader “both in Mexico and worldwide.” It is worth noting for the record that Germán Larrea Mota-Velasco, Southern Copper’s Chairman and the Chairman of Grupo México since 1999, remains in his role; he is not the executive whose death was reported in April 2026.

Legacy and Succession

Southern Copper moved quickly to fill the leadership vacuum. Effective April 16, 2026, the board appointed Leonardo Contreras Lerdo de Tejada, a company director since 2021 and the Chief Financial Officer and General Director of Americas Mining Corporation, as interim Chief Executive Officer, according to a company filing. On April 23, 2026, the board confirmed him as permanent CEO, while he continues to sit on the board — a move the company described in filings as intended to preserve continuity in both management and governance.

González Rocha’s tenure left the new leadership a business built on the operational backbone of Peru’s Toquepala and Cuajone open-pit mines and Ilo smelter and refinery complex, and Mexico’s Buenavista mine in the Cananea district of Sonora and the La Caridad operation. Cuajone alone produced nearly 163,000 tonnes of fine copper in 2025, and the company announced a $319 million overhaul of that mine in 2026, according to trade publication The Northern Miner.

The succession also comes as Southern Copper pushes ahead with its next growth wave: Peru’s long-delayed Tía María project, valued at $1.8 billion and roughly 23% built, had its exploitation permit briefly voided in March 2026 before being reissued the following month, while Mexico’s El Pilar project and Peru’s Los Chancas and Michiquillay deposits form part of a planned $10.3 billion investment program over the coming decade, according to Southern Copper’s own disclosures.

Copper Market Outlook

Southern Copper’s anniversary year has coincided with an unusually strong copper market. Prices touched record highs near $11,771 per tonne on the London Metal Exchange in December 2025, and Goldman Sachs Research has pointed to sustained demand from grid investment, power infrastructure, artificial intelligence and defense-related manufacturing as underpinning prices even as it expects some pullback from those highs during 2026.

J.P. Morgan Global Research has tracked copper trading around $13,000 per metric ton amid geopolitical volatility, projecting a gradual easing toward $11,600 per ton by the second quarter of 2027. Southern Copper itself has told investors it expects a global copper market deficit of roughly 315,000 tonnes in 2026, with worldwide inventories covering only about 16 days of demand as of late April, a tight-supply backdrop that has supported the record sales and earnings the company posted through the first half of the year.

For the newly installed leadership under Leonardo Contreras Lerdo de Tejada, that price environment provides financial breathing room to execute the growth pipeline that González Rocha helped design — from the Tía María restart in Peru to El Pilar in Mexico — as the company looks toward a second NYSE-listed generation built on the foundation laid over the past 30 years.

Frequently Asked Questions

When did Southern Copper start trading on the NYSE?

Southern Copper, then known as Southern Peru Copper Corporation, began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on January 2, 1996, the first business day of that year, according to the company’s official corporate timeline. It listed simultaneously on the Lima Stock Exchange and changed its NYSE ticker from PCU to SCCO in 2010.

Who died at Southern Copper, and was it Germán Larrea?

No. The executive who died was Óscar González Rocha, Southern Copper’s President and Chief Executive Officer, who passed away unexpectedly on April 7, 2026, at age 80, after leading the company for more than two decades. Germán Larrea Mota-Velasco, Chairman of both Southern Copper and Grupo México since 1999, remains in his role and was not the person who died.

Who is Southern Copper’s new CEO?

The board named Leonardo Contreras Lerdo de Tejada, previously the company’s Chief Financial Officer and a director since 2021, as interim CEO on April 16, 2026, and then confirmed him as permanent Chief Executive Officer on April 23, 2026, while he continues to serve on the board.