Newmont Mining Says Gold Mergers Needed To Spark Invest
Tuesday, April 11, 2000 01:13 AM
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PERTH (Dow Jones)--One of the world's largest gold miners said Tuesday that major company mergers are needed in the depressed industry to rekindle investment interest.
"In today's technology-driven equities market, gold is simply not relevant to most investors," said Ronald Cambre, chief executive of U.S.-based producer Newmont Mining Corp. (NEM, news, msgs).
Speaking at the Australian Gold Conference, Cambre said there are "compelling" reasons for consolidation when the market capitalization of the entire world gold industry is "less than $40 billion - less than half the value of AOL (America Online Inc.)."
"Only nine (gold) companies have a market capitalization of over $1 billion," he said in a speech prepared for the conference. "Few companies today could issue equity in sufficient quantity to finance a major new gold project."
"The capital markets are telling us that size matters," Cambre added. "North American gold funds today hold only $2 billion in assets as investors have withdrawn funds to invest elsewhere."
The threshold size for consideration by many portfolio managers these days is a market capitalization of $5 billion to $10 billion, he said.
But Terry Burgess, managing director of Australian miner Delta Gold NL (A.DGL, news, msgs), said he is confident that not all Australian producers will be absorbed by bigger South African and North American groups.
"I do not accept that in the near future there will be only four or five gold companies left and none of them will be Australian," Burgess said.
"The future of the world gold industry may end up with fewer and larger companies, but if there are only seven or eight large global gold companies in the world, there is every reason why at least two of them will be Australian-based," he said.
Delta Gold is currently involved in a takeover offer for Solomon Islands gold producer Ross Mining NL (A.RSM, news, msgs).
Delta also bid last year for Australian producer Acacia Resources Ltd., but its offer was withdrawn after a higher bid emerged from South African group AngloGold Ltd. (AU, news, msgs). |
