BARRICK Gold has been ordered to pay veteran dealmaker Ian Hannam’s firm $2m for helping to broker its merger with Randgold Resources in 2018.
Hannam & Partners (H&P) had demanded up to $18m from the Canadian mining group, claiming it was central to the Randgold deal, but that it was “pushed out” at the last minute.
This is according to a report by the Financial Times which said Barrick namechecked Wall Street rainmaker Michael Klein and involved several other big names in the investment banking and mining industries but omitted H&P.
High Court Judge Simon Gleeson found H&P had secured no legally binding agreement for fees on the deal, said the newspaper. Even so, he ruled in its favour on a legal principle known as unjust enrichment, said the Financial Times.
Speaking after the ruling, Hannam told the newspaper: “My word is my bond is still at the heart of a client relationship.”
He said the judge had “underlined the tenets of this relationship, which have existed in the City of London for centuries”. Hannam said his firm “never took on this litigation just for its fees. There were important matters of principle at stake.”
Hannam had told the court during the proceedings that the deal, for which he had coined the code name British Rail, “would not have happened without me”.
He said he had been “shocked” to see a press release that announced the deal in which there was no mention of H&P while Klein’s firm, M Klein & Co, was cited.
Barrick Gold had “categorically denied” the claims.
Bristow, who was Randgold’s CEO before the deal and now runs the merged entity, told the court that Hannam had not been formally involved in the transaction, and described an invoice for $18m that H&P sent in September 2018 as “outrageous”.
