The war of words between Newmont Mining Corp. (NEM.N) and Barrick Gold Corp. (ABX.TO) is not cooling off.
In a 30-slide presentation entitled "Capturing the missing facts," Newmont lays out its explanation for rejecting Barrick’s all-stock hostile offer from last month. The deal has spawned lots of contentious talk between the two sides, both of which called the other “desperate.” Barrick is trying to take over Newmont to create the world’s largest gold producer, while Newmont says it wants to complete the purchase of Goldcorp Inc. because that deal offers shareholders more value.
Among the most interesting slides:
The company reveals that Barrick Chief Executive Officer Mark Bristow approached Goldcorp about a merger as recently as 2017, when he was leading Randgold Resources Ltd. -- a company that Barrick bought this year. Bristow has previously disparaged the Goldcorp purchase, saying on Feb. 25 that Newmont was buying “a bunch of less-than-attractive assets.”
In addition, Newmont takes specific aim at Barrick Executive Chairman John Thornton, saying since he arrived at the company, it has underperformed Newmont by more than US$12 billion, “while pocketing over US$65M from Barrick shareholders.”
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