Barrick Gold Corp., the world's biggest gold producer, plans to spin off its gold assets in Africa into a separate, publicly traded company. Barrick will retain a 75 percent interest.
African Barrick Gold will consist of four producing mines and a number of exploration properties. At the end of 2009, reserves were estimated at 16.8 million ounces of gold.
Barrick hopes to list the company on the London Stock Exchange this spring.
During a conference call with analysts, President and CEO Aaron Regent discussed the reasons for the spinoff.
QUESTION: Did you consider other ways to monetize African Barrick, such as selling the assets?
ANSWER: "We get proposals all the time, as you can imagine, it does reflect the fact that there are a shortage of producing assets in the industry. So we get approached all the time.
"But that wasn't something that we were particularly interested in ... I think we can create a lot more value in this form than...just by selling assets individually."
Copyright 2010 AP News
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