American Barrick announces an astonishing 72% rise in profits in the first half of the year.
But such sterling financial performance garners hardly a ripple in the financial news columns. It’s given maybe a 10-second sound bite on radio. That’s it.
In such rocky economic times, any company that sees profits soar by that magnitude should be headline stuff. But not American Barrick. Why? The answer’s simple. This level of performance is expected of the superstar of the gold equities. In its way, Barrick is a victim of its own success. The Goldstrike property and the developing Miekle mine are huge deposits. They will vault the Canadian mining company right near the top of world gold producers.
But everybody knows that — the investing public, media commentators, analysts. And they’re waiting for the big payoff, when Nevada production runs flat-out. So, every time Barrick hits a new milestone, the information is absorbed with nary a ripple.
We were there, by the way, back in 1984, when little-league Barrick took over debt-ridden Camflo. At that meeting in a small room in the Royal York Hotel, if memory serves, Peter Munk spoke to the small gathering, his English tinged with his East European roots. He spoke of having big dreams and of gold being the vehicle for those dreams.
As it turned out, the reality surpassed the dreams to an extent that perhaps even Mr. Munk didn’t dare put into words back then. In fewer than 10 years, a minor producer of gold threatens to join the million-ounce-per-year crowd. An amazing feat — front-page headlines or not.
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