Commodities & Metals

Raymond James Sees Mixed View on Barrick and Newmont on JV vs Merger

Jon C. Ogg

Published: March 12, 2019 1:25 pm

Last Updated: January 30, 2020 11:34 pm

Newmont Mining Corp. (NYSE: NEM) has announced its special shareholder meeting and filed its proxy materials for the previously announced combination with Goldcorp Inc. (NYSE: GG). This is after Newmont signed a joint venture agreement with Barrick Gold Corp. (NYSE: GOLD), thus ending the efforts for Barrick’s pursuit of a major merger with Newmont.

The brokerage firm Raymond James sees a mixed view of Newmont and Barrick after the deal in a report from March 12, 2019.

Newmont was maintained with an Outperform rating and a $47 price target. It was last seen trading up 2.2% at $34.19 a share, in a 52-week trading range of $29.06 to $41.98.

Barrick was maintained as Market Perform with a $16 price target. Shares were last seen trading down 0.5% at $13.11.

The newly announced joint venture, which is more of what Newmont had been seeking as opposed to a takeover, was said to be designed to unlock $5 billion in financial synergies over time. The companies also announced that Barrick would be the operator, with ownership pegged at 61.5% for Barrick and 38.5% for Newmont. Board representation is said to be based on ownership percentages, but the advisory committees will have equal representation and Barrick withdrew its Newmont acquisition efforts.

Newmont showed that the acquisition of Goldcorp would accretive to Newmont’s net asset value per share by 27% and would be 34% accretive to its 2020 cash flow per share. The company further pointed to a target of 6 million to 7 million ounces of steady-state gold production over a multiple decade horizon. Gary Goldberg, chief executive officer of Newmont, said:

Combining with Goldcorp represents a compelling value creation opportunity for Newmont’s shareholders providing them with an unmatched portfolio of world class operations, projects, exploration opportunities, reserves and talent. Through the application of our proven Full Potential continuous improvement program, we anticipate generating $365 million in pre-tax synergies to potentially deliver $4.4 billion in Net Present Value. With nearly 90 percent of Newmont Goldcorp’s operations, projects and reserves located in favorable mining jurisdictions on four continents, we will be able to offer shareholders sustainable returns over a longer time horizon, at lower risk.