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To: patron_anejo_por_favor who wrote (167170)	5/21/2002 4:10:43 PM
From: Bill/WA	Respond to of 436258

don't know if this has been posted - some of it old news, but it popped up on my intro screen on compuserve;Gold Miners Ponder Consolidation By ROBERT KOZAK LIMA, Peru (AP) - Gold miners, looking at the future of their industry, are wondering whether the number of recent mergers and acquisitions will continue to grow. ``I think that consolidation will continue,'' Barrick Gold Corp. president and chief executive officer Randall Oliphant said at a recent gold conference held here. That conference, the 5th International Gold Symposium, was sponsored by Peru's National Mining, Petroleum and Energy Society. ``Companies can't just be regional players. This is really becoming a global industry and it will increasingly become so,'' Oliphant said. But, ``size for its own sake is not what we are talking about in consolidation,'' he added. Some executives at the conference said being bigger wasn't necessarily better for shareholders if a larger company couldn't produce a decent return on equity. Canada's Barrick, one of the world's largest gold miners, in December closed a merger with Homestake Mining Co. The company now expects to produce 5.7 million ounces this year from operations on various continents. Barrick recently downplayed rumors that it, alongside South Africa's AngloGold Ltd, could be interested in buying South Africa's Gold Fields Ltd. Gold Fields and AngloGold also denied the rumor. At the same conference, AngloGold Ltd. CEO Robert Godsell said consolidation for him didn't mean that bigger was better, but rather was ``a means to an end.'' ``Companies that consolidate to improve value will see their ratings improve,'' he added. The world's largest gold miner, Denver-based Newmont Mining Corp., believes that consolidation provides benefits. In February, it acquired Australia's Normandy Mining Ltd and Canada's Franco-Nevada Mining Corp. Ltd by fending off AngloGold, which last September had made its own bid for Normandy Mining. AngloGold lost that bid for Australia's largest gold company but added at the time that its hoped-for merger would have represented ``an important step in the consolidation of the gold industry.'' Newmont President Pierre Lassonde, who recently came to Newmont from Franco-Nevada Mining, said big investment funds prefer companies that are large and liquid. He added that bigger companies have easier access to the large amounts of capital needed to open and close mines. He said neighboring communities ``want to know that the company will have the economic means to close a mine,'' Lassonde said. Another benefit is risk diversification. Newmont, for example, with operations in Nevada, Peru, Australia, and Indonesia, can blend the overall risk, Lassonde said. ``We will see more consolidation but more likely at the intermediate level,'' he added. Newmont expects to record equity gold sales - -accounting for Newmont's portion of certain mines - of 7.5 million ounces this year. Another industry official, Compania de Minas Buenaventura SAA chairman Alberto Benavides said he didn't think the trend to consolidate would continue. ``This tendency to consolidate will diminish in its intensity. There are few big fish that are ready to be sold. The small companies aren't going to be tempted by the big ones,'' he said. Buenaventura owns a 43.65 percent stake in Peru's Yanacocha, Latin America's biggest gold mine, which is seen producing more than 2 million ounces of gold this year. Buenaventura is Peru's largest precious metals miner. ``I think that the big consolidations have taken place. The intermediate companies don't feel comfortable in being an insignificant part of a large company,'' Benavides added. There could be a lack of ready targets, as smaller companies find it easier to raise cash now that gold prices and share prices have risen, analysts said. That also means many of the larger companies are picking up their exploration budgets for greenfield projects. 05/21/02 14:51