FINANCE
helm , anything is possible .
Barrick Gold & Newmont Mining For years now , the world ’ s top two gold miners in terms of production have been in off-and-on talks to merge . In 2015 , the two will finally unite .
According to Reuters , Newmont has expressed interest in restarting merger talks with Barrick , after CEO Gary Goldberg announced that he was open to resuming discussing despite no contact between the parties since April . The two parties haven ’ t spoken since publicly accusing each other of ruining a deal favored by many investors . The deal , now more than ever , makes sense for Barrick . The Toronto-based gold producer reported a monster fourth quarter loss of $ 2.85 billion last year , as well as announcing it will be putting its Porgera and Cowal operations up for sale .
Cowen and Co analyst , Adam Graf , said there could be some cost savings if Barrick and Newmont combine , but a big , flashy deal could leave investors worse off .
“ I believe there are some synergies to be harvested in Nevada , but I think a mega-merger is not the best way to
‘ We continue to see the best outcome for Barrick and Newmont to be a consolidation of the companies Nevada operations . We still feel a combination creates value by accessing Nevada savings which we estimate are
around $ 250m pa .’
- John Bridges , Senior Analyst for JPMorgan
Barrick Gold Corp . Co-Chairman John Thornton was criticized by Newmont Mining for not being constructive as it ended merger talks .
22 M arch 2015