Darren Blasutti, president and CEO of Americas Silver and former senior VP of corporate development at Barrick Gold, said that although mergers between two major miners are rare events, he wasn’t particularly surprised at this particular deal between Barrick and Randgold. “I wasn’t surprised. Barrick’s been spending the last six or seven years working its balance sheet out, selling assets, and at some point in an industry in which you got to replace your ounces, they had to be starting to buy or look at merger opportunities,” Blasutti told Kitco News on the sidelines of the Precious Metals Summit in Beaver Creek. Blasutti noted that this deal should be advantageous to both parties, and gives Barrick the opportunity to sell non-core assets and make room on their balance sheet for bigger assets, which has been an objective for the company that has seen its share price drop nearly 50% since 2016.
