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Endeavour Mining said an investigation into former chief executive Sébastien de Montessus had discovered two more “deliberately disguised” payments totalling $15mn to an unnamed third party.
The gold miner fired de Montessus in January, alleging the French executive had instructed an irregular $5.9mn payment in relation to an asset disposal. The payment instruction had not been reported to the board.
Announcing the full findings of an investigation by Linklaters and EY on Wednesday, Endeavour said de Montessus and certain others had “caused” the company to make two payments adding up to $15mn to the same third party that had received the $5.9mn.
But despite “extensive efforts”, the probe failed to discover the ultimate beneficiary of the payments, which the miner said were made to an entity in Ras Al Khaimah in the United Arab Emirates.
According to people familiar with the matter, Plaza Investments Ltd was the name of the Ras Al Khaimah entity to which the payment was made. The Ras Al Khaimah-based entity was liquidated the day after the $5.9mn payment was made in March 2021, Endeavour said.
The group’s investigation did not find any evidence of “bribery, or of any payments to sanctioned persons or to terrorist groups”, it added. Endeavour did not name the others it claimed de Montessus acted with but said they were not employees of the company.
The payments, made in August and November 2020, were disguised as being to a contractor, Endeavour said, leaving the FTSE 100 company or the contractor with a potential loss.
De Montessus, who during his eight years as CEO transformed Endeavour into one of the largest gold miners on the London stock market through a series of deals in west Africa, said on Wednesday that he was “extremely disappointed” not to have had the chance to respond to the findings before publication.
The $15mn was advanced to an established contractor for work that was subsequently done, de Montessus said, adding that Endeavour “did not suffer any loss from that arrangement and it did not benefit me personally”.
The executive has previously acknowledged that he should have told the board about the $5.9mn payment instruction but has denied wrongdoing, saying the payment was made for security services.
De Montessus was the highest-paid chief executive in the FTSE 100 in 2021, earning $22.7mn, despite Endeavour being a fraction of the size of the London market’s biggest companies such as Shell and AstraZeneca. The miner has previously said it is looking to claw back some of de Montessus’s remuneration.
Endeavour owns four operating mines in west Africa. The $5.9mn payment related to the Agbaou mine in the Ivory Coast, which Endeavour sold to Canadian miner Allied Gold. De Montessus instructed Allied Gold to make the payment to the third party, the investigation found.
De Montessus attended two interviews during the probe but his explanation that the $5.9mn payment was used to pay for security equipment in a conflict zone was “found to be implausible and untrue”, Endeavour said.
Endeavour said the investigation also discovered a “personal investment agreement” signed in 2019 for at least $500,000 between One Continent Investments and de Montessus. One Continent Investments owns 49 per cent of Nere Mining, a company that bought the Karma mine in Burkina Faso from Endeavour in 2022, according to the miner’s annual report.
De Montessus did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the agreement.
At the time of the dismissal of de Montessus, Endeavour said that it had conducted a separate probe into allegations of personal misconduct, which the former chief denies. The Financial Times reported that those allegations were related to sexual harassment but the probe did not find evidence supporting the original claims.
Additional reporting by Cynthia O’Murchu in London
