‘No evidence’ Endeavour ex-CEO payments were made to terrorist groups, firm says
Endeavour Mining, the gold outfit which gave former boss Sebastian de Montessus his marching orders earlier this year after identifying unknown payments in the accounts, has this morning said the former CEO hid more than $20m worth of transactions out of the company.
De Montessus was fired in January after the board became aware of an “irregular payment instruction” of just shy of $6m, which this morning the board said it had confirmed occurred in March 2021, with the CEO “concealing his actions with repeated false representations to management, the Board and auditors.”
However this morning the firm told markets that the former CEO also caused Endeavour to make two payments totalling $15m to the same third-party company in August and November 2020, “deliberately disguising them as advance payments to a contractor through repeated false representations to management.”
Endeavour Mining said that whilst it had completed its investigation, the “ultimate beneficiaries” of the payments have not been discovered as the “recipient entity was liquidated immediately after the funds were transferred.”
The gold miner said however there was “no evidence of bribery, or of any payments being made to sanctioned persons or to terrorist groups.”
Endeavour has clawed back remuneration totalling just shy of $30m from De Montessus, who at one time was the best-paid CEO on the London-listed markets.
The board has also made “immediate adjustments” to financial controls, it told markets this morning.
De Montessus said today: “I co-operated fully with the investigation and am extremely disappointed that I have once again been denied the opportunity to respond to specific allegations before they have been published. $15m was advanced to an established Endeavour contractor, Endeavour did not suffer any loss from that arrangement and it did not benefit me personally. Contrary to the impression given by the announcement, I understand those sums were properly offset against invoices from that contractor. I will consider my next steps carefully.”
He claims the payments were made to, ultimately, “pay for essential security equipment to protect our partners and employees in a conflict zone.
“The decision had no additional cost to the company and did not benefit me personally in any way. I omitted to inform the board that I had arranged for this offset, which I have freely accepted was a lapse in judgment,” he continued,
Endeavour hit adjusted EBITDA consensus figures of $292m in Q4, with $266m of shareholder returns across the year.