Sacked Endeavour Mining CEO loses out $29m in bonuses and share awards

(Sharecast News) - Sébastien de Montessus, the former chief executive of Endeavour Mining who was abruptly sacked earlier this month for serious misconduct, is to miss out of $17.6m in bonuses and share awards, the FTSE 100 miner announced late on Thursday. Furthermore, the company said it is clawing back an additional $11.5m in share awards and bonuses paid in respect of the past three years' service.

De Montessus, who also served as company president, was fired on 4 January after an investigations into an "irregular payment instruction" worth $5.9m issued by the CEO relating to an asset disposal.

There were also allegations filed through Endeavour's whistleblowing channels relating to his personal conduct with colleagues, the company said at the time.

De Montessus responded in an emailed statement to explain that he had requested one of Endeavour's creditors to offset the amount owed to the company in order "to pay for essential security equipment to protect our partners and employees in a conflict zone".

He explained: "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."

In a regulatory filing on Thursday, Endeavour confirmed that de Montessus would not receive further salary, pension or benefits (including a $2m bonus) for the period after his date of termination and that all of his 717,397 shares held through unvested share awards (valued at $15.6m) lapsed in full.

In addition, it would apply clawback in full to the $10m one-off award granted to de Montessus in 2021 and the $1.5m cash portion of the bonus received for 2022. Part of the $11.5 million will be set off against de Montessus' remaining vested 2020 long-term incentive plan (LTIP) awards and the vested portion of his 2021 LTIP award (worth $8.8m in aggregate) and he will be required to repay the remainder.