Barrick Gold Corporation (Barrick) says its merger with Randgold has accelerated the pace and increased the effectiveness of its progress towards its strategic goals.
In its Information Circular for 2019, which is available now at www.barrick.com/investors/agm and has also been filed on SEDAR (www.sedar.com) and EDGAR (www.sec.gov), Executive Chairman John Thornton said key strategic initiatives have already been launched and the company expects to deliver on all that the merger promised by the end of the current year.
The Information Circular follows the publication of Barrick’s 2018 Annual Report, where newly-appointed President and CEO Mark Bristow outlined the steps already taken to achieve Barrick’s aim of becoming the world’s most valued gold business.
“We established strong regional executive teams in each of our three geographical zones: North America; Latin America and Australia Pacific; and Africa and the Middle East. Supporting them is a new corporate team with a mix of skills and experience which I believe is unequalled in this industry. The corporate office and its satellites are being restructured to move people and functions out of the backrooms and into the operations where they belong,” Bristow said.
“Operationally, mining plans are being shifted from a primarily cash flow optimisation base to a model focused on optimising the orebody and the margins. To this end, there are now mineral resource management teams at each of the mines. At the same time, all our systems are being upgraded to give managers access to consistent real time data to facilitate speedy and accurate decision-making.”
Also in the Information Circular, Lead Director Brett Harvey noted that since the announcement of the merger up until the completion of the transaction on 1 January 2019, the Barrick share price on the New York Stock Exchange rose by 29%, increasing the company’s market capitalisation by $3.6 billion. John Thornton delivered against all the objectives set for him in 2018 and this, together with the fact that he personally developed and executed the nil-premium merger with Randgold which strengthened Barrick’s position across all core metrics relative to its senior gold peers, is reflected in his incentive compensation for the year.
“Mr. Thornton was required to use a majority of the after-tax proceeds of his award to purchase Barrick shares, which he must hold until retirement, further building on his substantial ownership position of more than five million Barrick shares. He now holds 5 215 000 Barrick shares, nearly 29 times his base salary. Equally, our new President and CEO, Mark Bristow, converted his entire shareholding in Randgold to Barrick shares, and now owns more than five million Barrick shares,” Harvey said.
Harvey said following the merger the Board was reconstituted to consist of nine members with the diverse and strategically-relevant backgrounds required to address the global scale of the challenges, risks and opportunities facing the business today. Sadly, one of the Directors, María Ignacia Benítez, has since passed on, and the Corporate Governance & Nominating Committee is currently searching for an equally-qualified female candidate to appoint to the Board.