Reports of fisticuffs and blood after alleged spat at TD mining conference turns ugly – by Barry Critchley (National Post – January 29, 2015)

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

The old story has it that a visitor to Canada arrived eager to take in our national sport. Asked about it afterward, he remarked: “I went to a fight the other night, and a hockey game broke out.”

A visitor to TD Securities’ annual mining conference this week in Toronto, may have been mistaken had they thought they were at a fight – and not a mining conference.

The conference, held on Tuesday and Wednesday at Toronto’s Shangri-La Hotel, has been a regular TD event for the past few years. At the two-day session, presentations were made by about 60 issuing clients.

According to a post on the website IKN Daily Digest, which deals with “Latin America stocks, economics, politics and stuff like that,” it seems events got a little bit out of hand on Tuesday evening.

On IKN’s gossipy post Wednesday night, and under the heading “unconfirmed though decently sourced,” it alleged: “Clive Johnson, CEO of B2Gold (BTO.to) (BTG) and Daniel Earle, sell side analyst at TD Sec, got into a fistfight last night and according to reports picked up at IKN Nerve Centre, The Clive came off second best and today has a black eye and a pair of broken glasses for his troubles. Red wine was a third party in the fracas.”

In an update Thursday morning, the status of the post was upgraded to “Now confirmed.” Both Johnson and TD acknowledged that an incident occurred, but would not elaborate.

It’s understood the unpleasant situation happened at Modus Restaurant, which defines itself as “the plush new restaurant located in Toronto’s Financial District for upscale Italian dining.” The reception and dinner, on which TD was picking up the tab, was the final event on the first’s day program.

It also seems the incident occurred 10 pm. One attendee estimated it happened in front of 35-40 people.

People who were there claim that Johnson was acting in a manner that Earle thought was not appropriate. In essence, Earle — who according to Bloomberg research, doesn’t cover the company (that’s done by his colleague Steven Green) — told Johnson that he should settle down a bit.

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