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George Town:“We remain convinced about the strategic rationale of combining Endeavour and Centamin to create a diversified gold producer with a high-quality portfolio of assets. The quality of information received during the accelerated due diligence process has been insufficient to allow us to be confident that proceeding with a firm offer would have been in the best interests of Endeavour shareholders.” Sebastien de Montessus,
CEO & President,
Endeavour Mining Corporation.
Endeavour Mining Corporation has been informed by Centamin Plc that it does not intend to seek an extension to the January 14, 2020, PUSU “put up or shut up” deadline. Citing lack of information received, Endeavour confirmed today that it does not have intentions to make a firm offer for Centamin and resulting in the merger discussions being terminated.
Commenting on this, Sebastien de Montessus stated:
“We remain convinced about the strategic rationale of combining Endeavour and Centamin to create a diversified gold producer with a high-quality portfolio of assets. The quality of information received during the accelerated due diligence process has been insufficient to allow us to be confident that proceeding with a firm offer would have been in the best interests of Endeavour shareholders.
We continue to be disciplined in relation to business development opportunities and remain sensitive to dilution of our shareholders given the significant improvement in our business over the past four years. Following a period of significant investment, our business is now well positioned to generate significant cash flow as demonstrated with our net debt reduction of US$52 million in Q3-2019 and a further circa US$77 million in Q4-2019.”
From its first, private approach to Centamin on November 11, 2019, Endeavour sought an engagement with the Centamin in respect of a potential combination, but as Endeavour later cited, this was not forthcoming. As a result, the only course of action open to Endeavour was to communicate directly with Centamin’s shareholders.
Since then, Endeavour has made a number of concessions, including signing an NDA and standstill in order to make progress, the nature of the interaction from Centamin according to Endeavour continued to suggest that it was unwilling to explore meaningfully the potential benefits of a merger. According to Endevour, due to the lack of meaningful engagement by Centamin, both before and during the PUSU, there was insufficient time remaining before its deadline of December 31, 2019 passed to ensure the needed reciprocal due diligence exercise to take place.
Endeavour had at the time indicated intentions to proceed if it was given an opportunity to complete a proper and comprehensive due diligence exercise, including technical analysis and site visits which later seems to not have materialized.