LONDON (REUTERS) – Canada’s Barrick Gold has to pay the British deal maker Ian Hannam’s firm $ 2 million plus costs for his work on the acquisition of Gold Miner Randgold Resources, the Supreme Court of London on Wednesday.
Hannam was previously one of JPMorgan’s top craft and the nickname the “King of Mining” for his record of mediates in the resource sector, including the merger that BHP Billiton created in 2001 and the 2012 merger of Glencore and Xstrata.
His Hannam & Partners advisory boutique complained an agreement of an agreement that he says he was being reached shortly before Barrick’s acquisition of Randgold 2018.
Hannam & Partners said it was promised at least $ 10 million, increasing the figure if the deal was worth more than $ 10 billion.
After Barrick and Randgold had agreed a deal eventually worth around $ 18 billion, Hannam asked at $ 18 million and was rejected.
Randgold’s lawyers said that there was no written evidence of the alleged agreement and that Hannam & Partners did not pay any payment.
Judge Simon Gleeson said in a written decision that “no contract to provide investment advisory services was ever done”.
But he added: “The early work of the plaintiff (Hannam & Partners) when promoting the transaction has granted a valuable benefit to both Randgold and Barrick.
“Both Randgold and Barrick recognized this and were planning to pay the plaintiff with regard to the value they found they had received. They estimate this as an amount of $ 2 million.”
Gleeson said that Hannam & Partners was therefore entitled to $ 2 million plus the expenditure.
Neil Passmore, CEO of Hannam & Partners, said that the decision “was a groundbreaking judgment for the investment bank industry with a substantial allocation of reimbursements for work on a handshake, despite the fact that there was no written contract”.
Barrick also claimed the ruling as a victory and said that in September 2018 Hannam & Partners “had proposed the amount that Randgold had proposed to pay (Hannam & Partners) (Hannam & Partners) for the limited involvement in the transaction”.
(Reporting by Sam Tobin; Edit by Mark Potter)