Barrick Gold Corp. (ABX.TO) may have withdrawn its pursuit of rival Newmont Mining Corp. (NEM.N), but the hostile-takeover bid did yield a big prize: Control over "the largest single gold mining operation in the world."

On Monday, Barrick abandoned its US$17.8 billion bid for Newmont, with the two largest gold companies instead announcing a joint venture around their Nevada assets, with Barrick holding sway over 61.5 per cent of the operation. Barrick Chief Executive Officer Mark Bristow declined to say if control of the venture was his end game all along, but stressed that the final deal offers less “gristle” for investors to chew on than a full merger.

“It’s not an easy thing to do, to get past all the different opinions,” he said in a telephone interview. "It’s a fantastic outcome.”

Previous tries at merging, or even just expanding cooperation around the Nevada assets, have gone nowhere. A key issue has been which company would be in charge, and how the stake would be divided. Monday’s deal is restricted to Nevada, and doesn’t include exploration properties. But there is room to expand it, both sides said today.

Bristow said the area offers “high-grade reserves” and “outstanding exploration potential that I have no doubt we will continue to unlock.” The JV will ensure more than 20 years of profitable and responsible production in Nevada, he added.

With the hostile bid behind him, Bristow refused to say what large investors thought of the proposal. His focus now is on advancing a Nevada partnership he described as "the largest single gold mining operation in the world."

The joint effort will have three so-called Tier One assets, which produced about 4 million ounces in 2018. “The joint venture will then have a 48 million ounce high grade reserve and resources of an additional 28 million ounces to start with," he told analysts.

Ironically, it was Newmont’s own takeover play for Goldcorp Inc. that put today’s deal in motion. That merger “triggered an opportunity for us to get people’s attention,” Bristow said. Barrick’s hostile bid was launched as an alternative that would have derailed the Goldcorp deal.

“Historically, these opportunities are very difficult to exploit in a static scenario,” he said.

From the beginning, Bristow had said that the bulk of the US$7 billion synergies he envisioned from a merger with Newmont would come from the two companies’ projects in Nevada but insisted that Barrick operate the mine and have the larger stake. In a joint presentation to shareholders, the companies said they expect US$4.7 billion in synergies from the JV.

Newmont CEO Gary Goldberg had previously said any figures were ‘hypotheticals,” as the two sides had not sat down together long enough to work out the numbers. In the last week, though, Goldberg and Bristow have met over dinner in New York and in a one-on-one meeting in Toronto.

“This isn’t about personalities,” Goldberg said. “This is about working together and delivering on behalf of all of our stakeholders. So that’s it for the relationship talk.”