TIM COHEN: Randgold Resources merger with Barrick will take some time to show its mettle
It’s a terrible thing to admit, but a decade or so after Brett Kebble’s death, it turns out he did something incredible: he helped launch the company that will now be part of the largest gold firm in the world. Would that he were alive to savour it, and the billions he would then probably have blown on dubious art. After three years of negotiations, Canadian gold major Barrick and Kebble’s protégé Randgold Resources have put together an unusual deal to create an $18bn nil-premium merger that will form the world’s biggest gold mining company. Actually, the truth is a bit more complicated than this. The person who was really crucial in the creation of Randgold Resources was Peter Flack, who, legend has it, was on the verge of firing Randgold CEO Mark Bristow when Bristow convinced him about the future of gold mining in West Africa. Flack changed his mind on the spur of the moment. Kebble’s role was relatively minor, but he did help raise the finance to give Randgold its first asset, a...
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