AMONG the most common of questions fielded by Barrick Mining CEO Mark Bristow is the one about M&A, or the other about his retirement. Both were posed at the gold and copper miner’s first quarter presentation on Wednesday.
On M&A, Bristow stuck to the usual response. As a geologist, he is generally disposed to resource development. This outlook is backed up by a time-honoured conviction than falling resource inventory, especially in gold/copper, makes Barrick’s greenfields development strategy preferable to dealmaking, which Bristow considers expensive.
On succession, the question came with a twist after he told the Financial Times earlier the group’s board had formalised the process of finding a new CEO. Did this somehow change Bristow’s previous comments on his career plans to step back in 2028?
Bristow replied that his board always had oversight of the succession process, as had been the case in his former company Randgold Resources. Its executive development plans had enabled its seamless combination with Barrick Gold in 2019, he said.
“I’ve always been very clear about succession and the importance of it, so it shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone,” said Bristow.
“It’s deep into the organisation as an executive and as an executive group. We have got to know the top 300 potential high-flyers in our organisation across all three regions. We have that conversation with the board, and we have an executive development program as an integral part of that succession program. So the board is involved,” he said.
Speaking from the podium, this was Bristow at his most courtly. But asked by Miningmx in August of speculation he would be out by 2026, he was more forthright.
“Absolute bullshit,” he said.
The background to that was an article by Canada’s Globe & Mail. “When the Globe and Mail asked me when was I leaving, my answer was that I had not even got my head around that yet.”
If Bristow had truly not gotten his head around the issue then news the board had now formalised his succession suggests this is not a ‘nothing story’, a desperate search for a headline, as Bristow described the Financial Times article yesterday.
“Let me tell you something, three years is not a long time,” he told one analyst of his stated 2028 retirement date. “Not in a business like Barrick.” If a process is in place, it might conceivably be sooner.
