12 LEXPERT MAGAZINE
|
JULY 2019
Newmont's
$10-billion
friendly offer
for Goldcorp
was shaken
when Barrick
suddenly
made a
hostile
bid for the
acquirer
BY SANDRA
RUBIN
largest gold miner.
In September Toronto-based Barrick made a move
to widen the gap; a US$6.5-billion merger with Afri-
can miner Randgold Resources Ltd. "at galvanized
the gold mining industry into 'Oh my gosh, we have to
have a look at consolidation,'" says Ripley. "Most of the
senior miners started looking for dance partners."
Vancouver-based Goldcorp, which had been strug-
gling, needed to act to keep from becoming prey. It was
in talks with an unnamed company about what Ripley
calls "a merger of equals, something very different from
the Newmont transaction." (Rumours on the Street were
the other company was Newcrest Mining.)
T
he world of the top global
gold producers is like a jungle.
ere are predators and prey,
and alliances made to keep preda-
tors from becoming prey.
"It's very primal," says Charlene
Ripley, who was executive vice
president and general counsel of the
former Goldcorp Inc., which found
itself caught between the two top
predators earlier this year. Giants
Newmont Mining Corp.and Bar-
rick Gold Corp. regularly run neck-
and-neck for the title of the world's
'the Alligator
Then
Emerged'
PHOTO:
SHUTTERSTOCK