RE:The scene last night.... According to eyewitnesses and assorted gossips who have busily exchanged with IKN this morning, here's the apparent best-fit of what went down between
Daniel Earle of TD Sec and Clive Johnson of B2Gold (BTG) (BTO.to). The 10-20 was the bar at Modus Ristorante, in high falutin' downtown financial district Toronto. Clive Johnson, CEO and head honcho of B2Gold, found himself chatting pleasantly to one of the young and attractive waitresses there after having paid and, significantly, tipped pretty heavily. At some point Daniel Earle, who is by nature a mild mannered and relaxed kind of person, quipped to Clive in what was supposed to be a humourous manner (and I'm going to put this in speech marks even though it might not be the exact quote word for word, because if it wasn't it was darned close),
"You know she's only talking to you because of your wallet." Clive took this the wrong way and it all went downhill quickly. After replying with "What the f___ did you say?"* the CEO of the multi-billion dollar mining company B2Gold took it upon himself to punch Earle in the face. He then paused and punched him a second time, again in the face.
Daniel Earle then punched Johnson once, in the face, and Clive went down. That was the end of the fight.
The next day Clive was seen marketing in the meeting rooms and by-ways of Toronto with a well-formed black eye and broken glasses.
And that's your lot, except for three footnotes (and one of them really is a footnote).
a) Clive Johnson has been telling others roughly the same story, except for one small detail: he says that Daniel Earle threw the first punch. As we understand Modus has closed-circuit TV cameras and recorded the episode, if things ever come to a more formal head we'll get to find out which version is closest to the truth. For what it's worth and from what I've heard today, the most doubtful version of the story is the one being put forward by CEO Johnson.
b) Clive Johnson has previous form with this kind of behaviour and it tends to be at evening social occasions when...errrr...the wine floweth. Isn't it about time somebody in a position of executive power at BTO took him aside and had a quiet little chat about his habits?
c) And now the foot footnote. By some sort of bizarre coincidence, one of the previous occasions when Clive Johnson went tired and emotional (as they say in Private Eye) was last year at a mining bash, when he almost came to blows with John McCluskey of Alamos Gold. Now McCluskey may not be everybody's cup of tea as a person, but he's also known to be disabled with his leg problem. So maybe if Johnson can't calm down and be a normal person in future, he should at least try picking on somebody with four limbs and make it a fair fight.