Newmont to swoop on Goldcorp in $10bn deal
NEWMONT Mining Corp will buy rival Goldcorp Inc in a deal valued at $10 billion (R138bn), creating the world’s largest gold miner and cementing a return of M&A to the industry.
The transaction comes just three months after Barrick Gold Corp’s move to buy Randgold Resources in a $5.4bn transaction, which instantly spurred speculation that rivals would have to respond.
Goldcorp shares surged in US pre-market trading, climbing 13 percent to $10.96 as of 6.25am in New York. Newmont shares slipped 3 percent.
The two huge gold deals have the potential to spark investor interest after the industry lost favour, following years of lacklustre bullion prices, bad investments and disastrous deals.
Just two weeks ago, Mark Bristow, the new chief executive of Barrick, said that the industry was heading for irrelevance unless there were major changes.
Newmont and Goldcorp were “clearly not willing to sit back and let Barrick take the limelight,” said Kieron Hodgson, a natural resources analyst at Panmure Gordon in London.
Newmont will pay 0.3280 of its own shares for each Goldcorp share, a premium of 17 percent to the weighted average share price from the last 20 days. Newmont also plans to pay 2 cents for each Goldcorp share.
The deal will create a miner that exceeds Barrick-Randgold in scale, producing about 7.9 million ounces of gold a year.
And at about $10bn, the transaction will rival Barrick’s purchase of Placer Dome as the gold-industry’s biggest takeover.
That deal had a final value of about $9.9bn when it closed in 2006, according to data.
NewmontGoldcorp said it would sell up to $1.5bn in assets over the next two years, echoing a similar Barrick pledge to concentrate on the best-performing mines. Newmont also promised initial cost savings from the merger of $100 million a year.
The promise of unloading assets, something Barrick is also expected to do, will have repercussions for the industry as a host of mines are likely to be put up for sale.
Additionally, the two big deals will add pressure to other gold miners such as Kinross Gold and AngloGold Ashanti, which have missed out on the sudden deal rush. I Bloomberg