The Chinese translation is being made; the original is shown for now.
GOLD miners are pursuing acquisitions with more discipline than in previous booms, favouring share-based payment and cost savings, the Financial Times’ Lex column said.
Gold Fields’ $27bn cash-and-share offer for Australia’s Northern Star Resources, which the target rejected, was about three-quarters paid in stock. That partly protects the South African miner if the gold price falls.
Gold miners completed 32 deals worth a combined $21bn last year, the highest value in 15 years, according to S&P Global. Outside China, about a tenth of gold-mining deals in the past five years were paid entirely in cash, compared with nearly a quarter in the decade before, said the FT citing S&P Capital IQ data.
Buyers are also looking for cost savings. Gold Fields and Northern Star have neighbouring assets in Western Australia. Genesis Minerals and Vault Minerals said their July merger would remove the need for a new processing mill. Predictive Discovery and Robex Resources plan to combine some of their projects in Guinea.
There are plenty of targets. The 10 largest producers now account for about a quarter of global mine supply, down from roughly 45% around 2000, according to Morgan Stanley estimates.