27th Mar 2024 12:45
(Alliance News) - The former chief executive of Endeavour Mining PLC, Sebastien De Montessus, hit back after the company published the findings of an investigation into his conduct that prompted his dismissal in January.
In a statement, De Montessus said: "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. USD15 million 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."
Earlier, Endeavour said it had found no evidence of bribery as it concluded the investigation into De Montessus, while also publishing its 2023 financial results.
Nonetheless, the gold and silver mining company found De Montessus provided "implausible and untrue explanations" of his conduct during the course of the investigation.
In January, Endeavour sacked De Montessus for serious misconduct after investigating an irregular payment instruction issued by him, relating to the disposal of the Agbaou asset.
Endeavour said the investigation found that De Montessus, acting with certain others who are not employees of the group, diverted a USD5.9 million payment to a third-party company in March 2021, and concealed his actions with repeated false representations to management, the board and auditors.
This caused Endeavour to make two payments totalling USD15.0 million 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 said the there was no evidence of bribery, or of any payments being made to sanctioned persons or to terrorist groups.
However, it said it was unable to ascertain the ultimate beneficiaries of the payments despite extensive investigation, as the recipient entity was liquidated immediately after the funds were transferred.
Endeavour said there was no need to restate historic financial statements. Additionally, it said there was no material impact on the 2023 annual financial results, also released on Wednesday.
For 2023, Endeavour reported pretax profit of USD254 million, down from USD507 million the year before. Revenue decreased slightly to USD2.12 billion from USD2.07 billion.
Gold production fell 8% to 1.1 million ounces from 1.2 million ounces at an all-in-sustaining cost of USD967 per ounce, rising 14% from USD849 per ounce.
The realised price of gold sold increased by 6% to USD1,919 per ounce from USD1,808.
Shares in Endeavour rose 2.4% to 1,538.00 pence in London on Wednesday.
By Jeremy Cutler, Alliance News reporter
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