Peter Munk, entrepreneur founded Barrick Gold

Peter Munk, the Canadian immigrant who founded Barrick Gold Corp. in the early 1980s and transformed it from a small-scale operation into a global empire, has died. He was 90.

He died Wednesday in Toronto, according to a company statement. No cause was given.

A serial entrepreneur, Munk’s ventures ranged from high-end electronics to real estate. But it was as founder of Toronto-based Barrick, the world’s largest gold producer, that he amassed most of his wealth, the bulk of which he pledged would go to charities after his death.

Born in Budapest on Nov. 8, 1927, to Lajos Munk and Katharina Adler, Munk fled Nazi-occupied Hungary in 1944 with his father’s family. His mother, who left the marriage when Peter was 4 and had survived the Auschwitz concentration camp, committed suicide in 1988.

In 1948, Munk’s father sent him from an internment camp in Switzerland to live in Canada with an uncle. In a 1998 interview, Peter Munk said he initially dreaded the move. “But I was determined to succeed,” Munk said. “I probably had enough misguided self-confidence to think I could do it in Canada even though I couldn’t speak the language and didn’t have any contacts.”

Upon retiring in 2014 at 86, Munk handed control to John Thornton and vowed to remain involved in the company. “You can take maybe Munk out of Barrick; you cannot take Barrick out of Munk,” he said at an annual shareholders meeting.

Munk had five children: Anthony, Nina, Marc-David, Natalie and Cheyne. Linda Gutterson died in 2013.