Forensic accountants unable to identify bank account owner in Endeavour sacked CEO case

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Forensic accountants were unable to identify the owner of a bank account to which the ousted chief executive of Endeavour Mining, a West Africa-focused gold producer, instructed a $5.9mn payment, according to two people familiar with the details.

Sébastien de Montessus was sacked as chief executive of the FTSE 100 group on Thursday for alleged “serious misconduct” after the board discovered an allegedly irregular payment instruction he had issued.

EY and Linklaters undertook a forensic accounting investigation to identify the holder of the bank account that de Montessus ordered $5.9mn to be transferred into but they were unable to discover the owner, the people said.

De Montessus has said that the payment was made in 2021 to a known security company to provide services to protect partners and employees in a conflict zone, which people with knowledge of the situation confirmed was a reference to mines in Burkina Faso. De Montessus declined to provide the name of the company to the Financial Times.

Endeavour said on Thursday that the payment was connected to one of its divestitures in recent years, which a BMO research note said was the Agbaou mine in Ivory Coast, sold in 2021.

The chief executive instructed the then-private Canadian gold company Allied Gold, which bought Agbaou, to transfer $5.9mn owed to Endeavour as part of the transaction to the supposed security company, according to three people familiar with the matter.

Allied Gold said it “received payment instructions in compliance with the obligations outlined in the purchase agreement” and payment was made in line with the instructions and agreement.

Norton Rose Fulbright was the law firm that advised Endeavour on the Agbaou transaction.

EY and Norton Rose Fulbright declined to comment. Linklaters did not respond to a request for comment.

De Montessus said on Thursday that he had failed to notify the board of the arrangement but denied he benefited personally from the payment. He also criticised the short time he was given by the board to offer a defence.

A top-10 shareholder in Endeavour told the FT that if de Montessus was making a payment for security then “the minimum” he should have done was inform the chair or another board member.

“His answer was not satisfactory at all for the board,” the shareholder said.

De Montessus has previously come under fire for his high pay levels. He was the highest-earning FTSE 100 chief executive at £16.85mn in 2021, outstripping second-place Pascal Soriot, who earned £13.85mn for leading pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, a company with a market capitalisation more than 40 times larger than Endeavour.

Endeavour said that separately a complaint had been made by a whistleblower in October 2023 about de Montessus’s personal conduct with employees, an allegation he denies.

De Montessus’s departure leaves questions for Endeavour about the involvement and knowledge of other executives in the company of the irregular payment instruction.

Endeavour’s shares fell almost 7 per cent on Friday. Despite the appointment of mining veteran Ian Cockerill as chief executive, analysts at Berenberg said that there was scope for it to become an M&A target.

La Mancha, Endeavour’s second-largest shareholder founded by Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris — who sits on the company’s board — said on Friday that it recognised and respected the “challenging nature of the decision” to fire De Montessus but stood by it.