Paladin’s Fission Uranium takeover delayed by Canada security review
The takeover has faced several hurdles, including a delayed shareholder vote in August and opposition from Fission’s largest investor.
Sokalsky took the top job at Barrick after the also sudden exit of Aaron Regent in June 2012.
In a surprise move Wednesday, Canada’s Barrick Gold (TSX, NYSE: ABX) unveiled a new executive management structure that will see its President and chief executive Jamie Sokalsky leave barely two years into the job and less than three months after a breakdown in merger talks with Newmont Mining (NYSE:NEM), its largest rival.
Sokalsky will step down effective Sept. 15, said Barrick, and its position will be filled by senior executive vice-president Kelvin Dushnisky and executive vice-president Jim Gowans who will act as co-presidents, with overall responsibility for execution of the company’s strategic priorities and operating plans.
The world’s largest gold company said the new executive management structure would enable Barrick to meet the “distinct demands and challenges” of the mining industry in the 21st century.
Other planned changes include appointing chief financial officer Ammar Al-Joundi to the additional role of senior executive vice-president to work on the company’s strategic initiatives.
Some analysts and investors said the new structure will give chairman John Thornton, who took control in April as Barrick’s sole chairman, more power.
“The fact that a CEO has not been named suggests that John Thornton, Chairman, will continue to be very active in the management of the company in a de facto CEO role,” said TD Securities analyst Greg Barnes in a note to clients.
Under Sokalsky, who took the job after the also sudden exit of Aaron Regent, Barrick sold off less-profitable mines, cut operating costs and reduced debt.
Source: InfoMine Charts&Data.
Investors have punished the Canadian miner in recent years, as the gold price weakens, costs stay high and the firm recorded a series of write-downs for ambitions projects and takeovers during the commodity boom.
The stock was reacting positively to the news. It was up 1.47% to $20 in Toronto and 1.96% to $18.69 in New York at 10:08 am ET.
6 Comments
Curious Andrew
In all seriousness, what is the likelihood of a merger between Barrick and Newmont soon occuring?
Daniel Miranda
It seems that the board at Barrick have as much empathy and tolerance as their HR department. Nice one ! A merger meeting between Newmont and Barrick would be funny as both side of executives would be trying to be nice to each other while they would be thinking of how much fun it will be to fire the other guy. That is something worthy of a bad comedy.
Firdaus Abbasi
Current operational structure is Barricks problem. I suggest that it has little appetite to understand it’s foreign ops outside North America. Aren’t Tanzania, and Pascua Lama cases in point? Should it have cut and run with hiving off Barrick Africa? Mergers are only helping in diluting shareholder value and another way of abandoning management and value creation.
I suggest Newmont is a side show to Barrick’s real problems as a miner.
Pascua lama
Pascua Lama will be the nail in the coffin of this company. They never owned the concession in the first place.
Oredigr
The real problem with Barrick is that it has become dominated by accountants and lawyers. When the company was run by Geologists and Engineers it had tremendous growth and financial success. It will continue to spiral down until they actually put miners back in control of the company, IMO.
Industry insider
The problem is mining as a whole is backwards and 20 years behind other industries. Yes accountants and lawyers don’t have clue but neither does the Mining Engineers and Geologists that are running and ruining the other mining companies throughout the world. Miners destroy value, it is probably the highest over capitalized industry amongst all industries. The leadership is abysmal and wouldn’t know what the word meant if it bit them on the A$$. I have worked in the top executive levels in Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton, and Anglo among others and now working on my own trying to show the opportunities to these people how to save real money and improve their ops. The leaders breed mediocrity and treat the shareholders with disdain acting only in their self interest to keep their fat job. Their behavior permeates down to middle management who are only interested in surviving the next change in leadership which happens all to often in mining. These leaders that get displaced then move on and take with them their merry band of idiots to go and create the same problems they created at other mining companies or operations. Mining has to be one of the most incestuous industries and refuses to bring in new thinking, new technology and new people outside from other industries that perform better.
I have had dealings with Barrick recently and it is true they are clueless and are lost. They should clean house with the majority of their middle management suck-ups also. Turf and protecting ones job is all that matters in Barrick, Newmont, Cliffs, BHPBilliton, Rio and others and it won’t change anytime soon.