Barrick Gold CEO dismisses Canada HQ debate as ‘hysteria’

Bristow says he’s determined to keep the global miner headquartered in Toronto

Barrick Gold Corp.’s new chief executive is surprised by the “hysteria” over whether the world’s largest gold miner will remain a Canadian company.

Barely a week after his Channel Islands-based Randgold Resources Ltd. merged with Barrick, Mark Bristow says he’s determined to keep the global miner headquartered in Toronto — or at least as committed as he is to any head office.

“Mining industries have to catch up with the reality of the times,” Bristow said in a phone interview from Jackson Hole, Wyo., where he maintains a home. “We can’t sit in this massive corporate office — this old tradition — trying to run an organization that’s global by remote control.”

Bristow’s comments come in the wake of critical commentary by industry veteran Pierre Lassonde, who said Barrick’s reduced presence in Canada amounts to the kind of hollowing out of the country’s mining sector that Barrick’s late founder, Peter Munk, vigorously opposed. Lassonde was particularly critical of the fact that Barrick’s top company leaders — Bristow, chief financial officer Graham Shuttleworth and executive chair John Thornton — aren’t based in Canada.

“The head office of a company is where the CEO and the CFO sit, and they have to sit in one room,” Lassonde, chair of Toronto-based Franco-Nevada Corp., said Tuesday on BNN Bloomberg. “This is not going to be a de facto Canadian company, period.”

Bristow, who has often said he modelled Randgold on Munk’s vision for the company, doesn’t understand Lassonde’s comments. Munk was a great entrepreneur who “always aspired to build a world-class business,” Bristow said, and that focus will continue.

That means embracing digital innovation at mine sites and getting real-time information to mine managers and executives faster, said Bristow, who built the former Africa-focused, London-listed Randgold into one of the U.K.’s great corporate success stories.

His comments align with a push, under Thornton, to decentralize operations at Barrick, where the Toronto head count has been cut from a year ago when the miner’s head office occupied two floors of a downtown skyscraper. With another round of layoffs late last year, the head count is now 60 to 70 employees on just one floor, Bristow said.