Barrick Gold

Barrick Gold Corporation engages in the exploration, mine development, production, and sale of gold and copper properties. It has ownership interests in producing gold mines that are located in Argentina, Canada, Côte d'Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Dominican Republic, Mali, Tanzania, and the United States. 

The company also has ownership interests in producing copper mines located in Chile, Saudi Arabia, and Zambia; and various other projects located throughout the Americas and Africa. Barrick Gold Corporation was founded in 1983 and is headquartered in Toronto, Canada.

Barrick Gold Corporation evolved from a privately held North American oil and gas company, Barrick Resources. After suffering financial losses in oil and gas, founder Peter Munk decided to refocus the company on gold. Barrick Resources Corporation became a publicly traded company on May 2, 1983, listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange. The company was set up not as a conventional mining company, but as a mergers and acquisitions entity that bought mining companies.

In the 1980s, Barrick Gold purchased Goldstrike, which was a rapid success making Barrick one of the biggest gold mining companies globally.

Reflecting its identity as a North American producer, distinct from its South African competitors, the company's name was changed to American Barrick Resources in 1986. It was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in February 1987. Its name was changed to Barrick Gold Corporation in 1995.

American Barrick became the third-largest gold mining company in the world when it acquired Lac Minerals in 1994, which owned mining properties in North and South America. Two years later, in 1996, Arequipa Resources, owner of properties including the Pierina mine in Peru, accepted a takeover offer from the renamed Barrick Gold Corporation. A third acquisition followed in early 1999, when Barrick Gold acquired Sutton Resources Ltd., assuming ownership of properties in Tanzania. In 2001, Barrick acquired Homestake Mining Company for $2.3 billion in stock, then one of the oldest mining companies in the United States. The purchase made Barrick the second-largest gold producer in the world.

In December 2005, Barrick launched a hostile takeover bid valued at US$9.2 billion for rival Canadian gold miner Placer Dome. The $10.4 billion transaction closed in December 2006. The procurement made Barrick the owner of the Porgera Gold Mine in Papua New Guinea. Shortly after the merger, Barrick, seeking increased profitability, terminated many of the staff at Placer Dome who led the community relations work.

In February 2010, Barrick Gold announced plans to create a separate company to hold its assets in Tanzania, called African Barrick Gold. Barrick Gold would retain majority ownership in the new company, after its listing on the London Stock Exchange. African Barrick Gold was listed on the London Stock Exchange in mid-March 2010, with an IPO valuation of US$3.6 billion. The shares offered on the LSE raised just more than 500 million pounds. In June the company was admitted to the FTSE 100 Index.

In 2018, John L. Thornton orchestrated a strategic “trust-based relationship” between Barrick Gold and Shandong Gold Group, a Chinese state-owned enterprise, establishing joint ownership of the Veladero mine to capitalize on Shandong's investor base, capital suppliers, political connections, and regional influence. In the press release announcing the partnership, Thornton said that Barrick and Shandong were looking forward to “sharing… capital in ways that will create added value for our respective owners, and our government and community partners in San Juan province”.

In September 2018, Barrick Gold announced an all-stock merger with Randgold Resources in a deal valued at $6.5 billion. Immediately following the announcement of the merger, Randgold shares rose 6% and Barrick shares rose 5.6%. The deal created the world's largest gold producer with the new company listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange and New York Stock Exchange. The companies began talking about a combination in 2015 and the deal was orchestrated by Barrick Executive Chairman John L. Thornton and Randgold Founder and CEO Mark Bristow.

In February 2019, Barrick Gold announced a hostile $19 billion bid to acquire Newmont Mining Corporation, an American company based in Denver, Colorado. It was estimated that a merger could create $7 billion of value in operational synergies and would result in a 14% rise in Newmont's net asset value per share. The deal would have created a gold mining company with a market value of about $42 billion that some said would be a long-overdue restructuring of the global gold industry. Merging gold companies could make the industry more attractive to general investors as gold reserves are shrinking across the globe so fewer competitors could boost growth prospects. Newmont rejected the takeover offer and instead suggested the two companies' operations in Nevada, USA, be merged with Newmont CEO Gary Goldberg insisting that the joint venture be operated by Newmont with the two companies dividing the ownership equally. A joint venture was subsequently announced in March 2019 with Barrick as the operator owning 61.5% of the business.

On July 1, 2019, Barrick and Newmont Corporation launch Nevada Gold Mines. The combined operation is the single largest gold mining complex in the world and employs more than 7,000 people. It combined the mines Goldstrike, Cortez, Turquoise Ridge, and Goldrush from Barrick and Newmont's Carlin, Twin Creeks, Phoenix, and Long Canyon sites, plus the associated processing plants and infrastructure of both companies. The joint venture was created after Barrick gave up a takeover bid for Newmont in early 2019. Nevada Gold Mines in total comprises 10 underground and 12 opencast mines, two autoclave facilities, two roasting facilities, four oxide mills, a flotation plant and five heap leach facilities. Barrick owns 61.5% of the joint venture and operates the business, while Newmont owns 38.5%. It was estimated that $500 million could be saved by creating the joint venture in average annual synergies during the first five years of operating the joint venture. After its first year of operation, $35 million in operating and management costs were saved. Over 20 years, it is estimated that $4.7 billion of total savings will be realised.

Pakistan plans to grant Barrick a mining lease, exploration license and surface rights to restart the Reko Diq copper-gold project, it was announced in March 2022. The project when in production has the potential to be one of the top five gold-copper mines in the world. It has the potential to produce 250,000 ounces of gold and 200,000 tons of copper every year for more than half a century and could be in production by 2027. It was estimated that the project site contains up to 42 million ounces of gold and 54 billion pounds of a copper study done in 2010. The mineral deposit was discovered at the foot of an extinct volcano in the 2000s. Work on the project was stopped in 2011 when a mining license to develop the Reko Diq mine was refused to be granted by Pakistani authorities. 

Ownership of the mine is to be split evenly between Pakistan and Barrick, which are investing about $10 billion in the project, which is the single largest investment in the country. About 8,000 jobs are expected to be created and about $1 billion will be invested in a new mining technical school along with hospitals, schools and roads in the province of Balochistan, which is poor and sparsely populated. Construction of the mine will take place in two phases beginning with a processing plant with a capacity of 40 million tonnes per year and doubling five years after being commissioned.

“We aim to be the leading mining company focused on gold, growing our cash flow per share by developing and operating high-quality assets through disciplined allocation of human and financial capital and operational excellence.”

“Our vision is to be the world s most valued gold mining business by finding, developing, and owning the best assets, with the best people, to deliver sustainable returns for our owners and partners.”