Kenmare Resources paid former managing director Michael Carvill almost €109,000 in consulting fees last year, even as he was trying to put together a takeover bid for the mining company he founded in 1986 and ran until 2024.
The Irish-headquartered group disclosed last year that Carvill, who retired from the business in August 2024, was treated as a “good leaver”, receiving a $2.64 million (€2.32 million) package.
Kenmare retained the former executive as a consultant to advise on the negotiation of the renewal of a royalties agreement with the government of Mozambique relating to Kenmare’s Moma titanium mine.
On Friday, in its 2025 annual report, Kenmare said it paid a Carvill-controlled company, Zephyr Consulting Ltd, €108,880 last year for that work, comprising a monthly fee of €27,220.
Carvill was also entitled to a “completion fee” of 100 per cent of the consultancy payments made to him in 2024 if agreement with the Mozambique government had been renewed by the end of 2024, according to the annual report.
The completion fee, however, “did not become payable”, the company’s remuneration committee noted in the report, because the royalties agreement was not renewed.
Carvill also received shares in the group with a total value of £300,000 (€344,580), based on the vesting of a 2023 restricted stock award, according to the report.
Carvill’s consultancy arrangements terminated in April 2025, one month after Kenmare confirmed it had received a takeover bid from a consortium led by the former managing director.
In Friday’s annual report, Kenmare’s board said the offer was “unsolicited and non-binding” and added that “at no point did the consortium make a firm offer for the company”.
“We were encouraged by shareholders’ strong support for the board’s rejection of the consortium’s revised proposal and appreciate their patience and endorsement of the company’s long-term value proposition,” they said.
Kenmare said earlier this month that it may have no choice but to bring international arbitration proceedings against Mozambique after tax authorities there sought to “unilaterally” impose a new regime on royalties and VAT on the titanium miner’s processing and exporting activities in the country.
Carvill’s successor as managing director, Tom Hickey, was paid a total of almost £1.29 million last year, the report discloses.
This represented a slight increase from £1.25 million the previous year and included bonus payments of £294,000 and a restricted share award with a total value of £272,000.
Kenmare’s remuneration committee said that Hickey’s bonus, which was down from £336,000 in 2024, was calculated at 45 per cent of the maximum total, based on the achievement of certain performance-related targets.
While the bonus award is payable in cash, the committee noted that Hickey has requested that his net bonus be directed towards the purchase of the company’s shares.
Overall, Kenmare spent £72.8 million on pay, including directors’ pay, last year, up 5 per cent from 2024.
In late March, the group said it was laying off 15 per cent of staff working at the Moma mine and suspending its final dividend as its gross profit plunged 79 per cent amid a slump in shipments and prices of its titanium minerals.
The Dublin-based group swung into a net loss of $325 million (€280 million) last year, driven by a $301.3 million impairment charge taken against its Moma assets as it lowered its long-term revenue assumptions amid uncertainty over pricing.