Attendees speak with representatives at the Barrick booth at the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) annual mining conference in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, March 3, 2025.
Carlos Osorio | Reuters
Company: Barrick Mining (B)
Business: Barrick Miningformerly Barrick Gold Corporation, is a gold and copper producer engaged in the production and sales of gold and copper and related activities such as exploration and mine development. The Company is involved in producing gold mines in Argentina, Canada, Ivory Coast, Democratic Republic of Congo, Dominican Republic, Papua New Guinea, Tanzania and the United States. Its copper mines are located in Zambia, Chile and Saudi Arabia. Its operations include Nevada Gold Mines, Bulyanhulu, Hemlo, Jabal Sayid, Kibali, Loulo-Gounkoto, Lumwana, North Mara, Porgera, Pueblo Viejo, Tongon, Veladero and Zaldivar. The Bulyanhulu operation is located in northwest Tanzania, over 55 kilometers south of Lake Victoria and 150 kilometers southwest of the city of Mwanza. The Jabal Sayid copper operation is located 350 km northeast of Jeddah in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The Lumwana copper mine is a conventional opencast mining operation.
Market value: $69.16 billion ($40.38 per share)
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Barrick Mining shares since the beginning of the year
Activist: Elliott Investment Management
Property: n/a
Average cost: n/a
Comment from activists: Elliott is a multi-strategy investment firm with approximately $76.1 billion in assets under management as of June 30, 2025 and is one of the oldest firms of its kind under continuous management. Known for its extensive due diligence and resources, Elliott regularly monitors companies for years before making an investment. Elliott is the most active activist investor, engaging with companies across industries and geographies.
What happens
On November 18, Elliott announced a stake in Barrick Mining and expressed interest in potentially separating North American assets from its mines in riskier regions in Asia and Africa. Most recently, Barrick announced on December 1 that its board had authorized the company to explore a possible separation of its North American assets.
Behind the scenes
Barrick Mining is a Toronto-based global mining company primarily focused on gold, operating 14 gold mines and three additional copper mines. The core of this business is its North America Gold assets, which consist of some of the highest quality deposits in the world, most notably Nevada Gold Mines, a joint venture with Newmont in which Barrick owns 61.5% and acts as operator. The company also operates gold mines in Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and Asia. Its copper portfolio is focused on Africa and the Middle East, including Reko Diq, a new copper development project in Pakistan.
Amid gold's recent bull market, Barrick shares have more than doubled in the last six months. Still, Barrick continues to trade at 0.9x its price-to-net asset value ratio, a significant discount to North American peers that trade well above 1x, with industry-leading peers such as Agnico Eagle trading at around 1.5x.
Investors buy gold companies primarily to gain exposure to the price of gold, and therefore prefer the companies with the best management teams to run the companies most efficiently to best insulate the value of the commodity. Barrick wasn't a top performer among its peers, so it abruptly parted ways with its CEO in September and replaced him with Mark Hill, the former COO, as interim CEO.
An interim CEO opens up two very valuable opportunities for an activist at a company like Barrick. First and most importantly, they have a say in who the new CEO will be, whether they agree with the company for a seat on the board or simply remain an outspoken shareholder. While they may not always be in the room when the discussions are being had or the decision is being made, we don't know of any CEO who would take a job at a company with an activist like Elliott if they didn't know that Elliott had agreed to the hire.
Second, when a company has an interim CEO, this is an opportune time to explore strategic alternatives, and breaking up that company has always been the big deal.
Barrick's North American operations have been impacted by the company's exposure to higher-risk regions, and separating the two would go a long way toward closing the valuation gap between Barrick and Barrick Agnico Eagle.
The value proposition of a separation is clear and management has even discussed it. In a presentation published in May, management showed that applying a comparable multiple to Barrick's North American assets could unlock up to 49% of unrealized value. Since then, the price of gold has risen more than 70%, but the company's shares have gained more than 100%, so much of that gain has already been realized, but there is still some value that can be realized from a split.
Elliott has a history of taking directorships at companies, not for activist reasons, but only when they felt the director they appointed to the board could create real value for shareholders. In this case, dissolving the company is being seriously considered by the board, and Elliott's existence alone is likely to have at least negative approval power over the new CEO.
Furthermore, Elliott is not impetuous in his activism. At this point, they have probably already had a position in Barrick for many months and have already made a big return from the company's 100% increase in value over the last six months. We would not expect them to increase their activism here unless either the board goes down a path that they did not expect and disagree with, or it is at the company's invitation to join the board to assist with the tasks ahead.
Ken Squire is the founder and president of 13D Monitor, an institutional research service on shareholder activism, and the founder and portfolio manager of the 13D Activist Fund, a mutual fund that invests in a portfolio of activist assets.