Ray Washburne's Texas-based Gillon Capital would gain majority ownership of Sherritt if the deal goes ahead.Evan Vucci/The Associated Press
Canadian miner Sherritt International Corp. S-T is nearing a sale to a former Trump administration official at a discount to its already heavily depressed share price after U.S. sanctions on Cuba forced the company to suspend its operations there.
Toronto-based Sherritt said Wednesday it had signed a non-binding share purchase warrant agreement with Gillon Capital LLC. If exercised within nine months of the deal closing, the warrant would give Gillon a 55-per-cent ownership stake in the company.
While no financial terms were disclosed, Sherritt said it expects the price “will be at a discount” relative to its May 15 closing price of 11 cents a share “given the current circumstances of the corporation.”
Gillon Capital is the Texas-based family office of the Washburne family. Ray Washburne is a long-time real estate investor who then-U.S. president Donald Trump appointed in 2017 as president of the Overseas Private Investment Corp., a federal agency that specializes in helping U.S. businesses make politically risky deals. Mr. Washburne held that position until 2019, before joining Mr. Trump’s intelligence advisory board.
Sherritt has been under mounting pressure since the start of 2026, when the United States set up an oil blockade on Cuba and subsequently imposed further sanctions on the communist island in an attempt to force regime change. Washington dramatically escalated its pressure campaign on Havana on Wednesday by indicting former Cuban president Raúl Castro on murder charges.
However, Sherritt said the U.S. State Department and the Treasury Department confirmed that they do not object to Gillon Capital’s talks and do not consider the negotiations to be contrary to U.S. laws related to Cuba. Any subsequent transaction would require the approval of both departments, Sherritt said.
In February, Sherritt had to shut down its Moa nickel mine in Cuba owing to a lack of fuel. At the time, National Bank Financial analyst Shane Nagle estimated the company’s adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or EBITDA, would decline by roughly $300,000 for every week the mine was closed.
Cuba has been a critical market for Sherritt ever since the early 1990s. The company struck a joint venture agreement with the state-owned General Nickel Co. SA in 1994 and had been importing Cuban nickel to Canada since 1991.
Sherritt also has a joint venture agreement with power producer Energas S.A. that gives the Canadian company a one-third ownership stake in the Cuban state-owned utility.
In Canada, Sherritt operates a nickel and cobalt refinery in Fort Saskatchewan, Alta., where the raw materials extracted from Cuba are refined. Sherritt has previously said the refinery’s metal supply is expected to run out by mid-June.
Three members of Sherritt’s board of directors, including chair Brian Imrie, Richard Moat and Brett Richards, resigned earlier this month after the miner formally suspended all Cuban operations. Yasmin Gabriel, the company’s chief financial officer since 2021, abruptly left the company on May 12, the same day accounting giant Deloitte LLP resigned as its external auditor.
Three days later, on May 15, Sherritt announced it was dissolving its Moa and Energas agreements. While the company said the process “will take a minimum of several months and possibly several years” to complete, it was scheduled to appear before the Alberta Court of King’s Bench on May 19 to seek “accelerated dissolution.”
However, Sherritt reversed course on Tuesday, announcing in a May 19 statement that it no longer planned to sever its Cuban connections after receiving a “potential value-preserving opportunity.” The deal with the Washburne family was announced the next day.
Mr. Nagle, the National Bank analyst, told The Globe and Mail on May 7 that Sherritt had enough cash to continue making interest payments on its debt through the summer, but that a refinancing or restructuring may be necessary in the fall.
Neither Sherritt nor Gillon chief investment officer Jeff Peterson responded to a request for comment.
Once worth nearly $5-billion in the late 2000s, with a share price of more than $16, Sherritt’s recent troubles predate the U.S. government’s latest actions against Cuba. The company has grappled for several years with a large debt load and relatively low nickel prices.
At the start of 2026, the company had a total market capitalization of roughly $160-million. Since then, the stock has lost nearly half its value, giving Sherritt a valuation of about $85-million as of Tuesday.