London (Reuters) – Barrick gold in Canada has to pay $ 2 million dollars of British Dealmaker Ian Hannam, more expenses for the acquisition of Gold Miner Randgold Resources, the High Court of London ruled on Wednesday.
Hannam was previously one of the best Rainmands in JPMorgan and nicknamed the « King of Mining » for his record for agreements in the resource sector, including the merger that created BHP Billiton in 2001 and the 2012 merger of Glencore and Xstrata.
His Hannam & Partners advisory shop continued on an agreement which, according to him, was concluded shortly before the acquisition of Randgold in 2018 by Barrick.
Hannam & Partners said it was promised at least $ 10 million, the figure increasing if the agreement was worth more than $ 10 billion.
After Barrick and Randgold concluded an agreement worth $ 18 billion, Hannam asked for $ 18 million and was postponed.
Randgold lawyers said there were no written evidence of the alleged agreement and that Hannam & Partners owed any payment.
J. Simon Gleeson said in a written decision that « no contract to provide investment consulting services had never been created ».
But he added: « The early work of the applicant (Hannam & Partners’) in the promotion of the transaction gave a precious advantage to Randgold and Barrick.
« Randgold and Barrick admitted this, and intended to pay a payment to the applicant with regard to the value they said they had received. They estimated that this represents an amount of $ 2 million. »
Gleeson said Hannam & Partners were therefore the more dollars more of his expenses.
The CEO of Hannam & Partners, Neil Passmore, said that the decision was « a founding judgment for the investment bank sector with a substantial allocation of work costs undertaken on a handshake, despite the fact that there was no written contract ».
Barrick also claimed the decision as a victory, saying that Hannam & Partners had received « the amount that Randgold had proposed to pay (Hannam & Partners) in September 2018 for its limited involvement in the transaction ».
(Report by Sam Tobin; edition by Mark Potter)
