African Gold (NYSE:AGAC) disclosed in an 8-K over the weekend that its management recently detected improper withdrawals from the company’s bank accounts and CFO Cooper Morgenthau has been terminated as a result.
The revelations came as a part of African Gold’s explanations as to why its June 2022 10-Q has not yet been filed, as the NYSE has informed the SPAC it is out of compliance without one.
Management believes that Morgenthau made the unauthorized withdrawals beginning in the first quarter of 2022 “and took deliberate actions to conceal them, including by falsifying documents”. As a result, certain invoices from third-party vendors have not been paid. Importantly, the SPAC’s trust was not affected by these irregularities and it maintains $415,537,995 available.
This is a highly unusual event and it surrounds an notably young executive in 33-year-old Morgenthau. He spent six years as a vice president at M. Klein and Company – the firm behind the prominent Churchill SPACs. After Churchill I combined with Clarivate Analytics in 2019, Morgenthau served six months as its SVP of financial planning & analytics before joining African Gold in 2020.
Vice Chairman Brian Hinchcliffe has been appointed interim CFO and in the meantime, the SPAC ” is not in a position to advise when” its restated March 2022 10-Q or June 2022 10-Q will be filed.
African Gold has until March 2, 2023 to complete a transaction and it has been searching in the natural resources sector.
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