Thirteen entities, nine countries, one ownership chain per mine.

The holding structure

Quintel Corporation Limited is the ultimate parent of the group, incorporated and tax resident in the United Kingdom. It holds no operating assets directly. Each mine sits in a company incorporated in the country where the mine is located, which holds the mining title and employs the workforce, and which is owned by the parent through a single intermediate holding company per country.

The group deliberately uses the shortest ownership chain that the law of each host country allows. There are no holding companies in jurisdictions where the group has no operations, no employees and no commercial activity. Where an intermediate entity exists it exists because a host country requires a locally incorporated shareholder, or because a joint venture partner and Quintel needed a jointly owned vehicle to hold the title.

Quintel will state the beneficial ownership of any entity in the group on request, to any party with a legitimate interest, including host governments, counterparties, journalists and community organisations. That commitment is in the Code of Business Conduct and has been acted on eleven times since 2020.

Host government and local interests

Five of the group’s eight assets have a host state or state-owned entity as a direct shareholder. In Ghana this is a statutory free-carried interest set by the Minerals and Mining Act. In Guinea, Gabon, the DRC and Côte d’Ivoire it arises from the mining convention or code applicable in each country.

Three assets carry a community or employee interest in addition to any state interest. At Mbengwe a community trust representing six chiefdoms holds 5%. At Gamagara a broad-based black economic empowerment consortium holds 21% and an employee share trust 5%. At Lubumba a provincial development fund holds 5%.

These are real equity interests carrying real dividend rights, not commitments to spend money on behalf of a community. The distinction matters: a community that owns 5% of a mine receives a share of what the mine actually earns, and has standing to ask why when the answer is nothing.

Marketing and logistics entities

Quintel Metals DMCC in Dubai and Quintel Metals Europe BV in Rotterdam market the group’s production, arrange freight and provide trade finance. They buy from the operating companies and sell to third parties.

Related-party transactions between operating companies and the marketing entities are conducted at arm’s length, documented under OECD transfer pricing guidelines, and the service margin is benchmarked annually by an external adviser. The methodology is published in the Tax Transparency Report because this is precisely the kind of structure that, in this industry, has historically been used to move profit out of the countries where it was earned.

Neither marketing entity trades third-party metal. They handle Quintel production only.

Joint ventures and non-operated interests

Quintel holds no non-operated minority interests in mining assets and does not intend to acquire any. Where the group is a partner it is the operator, with responsibility for safety, environmental and social performance and the standards that govern them.

The reason is not a view about the quality of other operators. It is that the group’s standards are enforced by people who report, ultimately, to the Chief Operating Officer. In an asset Quintel does not operate, those standards are a request.