{"id":1117982,"date":"2019-05-27T13:25:25","date_gmt":"2019-05-27T13:25:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mining.com\/?p=989472"},"modified":"2019-05-27T13:25:25","modified_gmt":"2019-05-27T13:25:25","slug":"barricks-bid-for-acacia-an-appropriate-and-elegant-solution-to-tanzanias-woes-ceo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/?p=1117982","title":{"rendered":"Barrick\u2019s bid for Acacia an \u201cappropriate\u201d and \u201celegant\u201d solution to Tanzania\u2019s woes \u2014 CEO"},"content":{"rendered":"

Barrick Gold\u2019s (TSX:ABX)(NYSE:GOLD) chief executive, Mark Bristow, said the company\u2019s bid for its 64%-owned Acacia Mining\u00a0(LON:ACA) is an \u201cappropriate\u201d and \u201celegant\u201d solution to the long-running row<\/a>\u00a0over outstanding tax claims that has hit the African miner\u2019s bottom-line.<\/p>\n

The $285-million offer<\/a>, considered by some analysts and Acacia\u2019s minority shareholders as a low, would see the world’s second largest gold miner buying the remaining 35% of Acacia it does not already own, at a discount.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not trying to exploit any particular situation,\u201d Bristow told Bloomberg<\/em><\/a>. \u201cAt the end of the day we do believe it\u2019s a well-considered, fair and proper proposal that should be taken seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not trying to exploit any particular situation,\u201d CEO Mark Bristow said referring to Barrick\u2019s $285-million offer for Acacia Mining.<\/q><\/p>\n

The proposed takeover, said Barrick last week<\/a>, was made after realizing that the government of Tanzania was not prepared to deal directly with Acacia to settle their differences.<\/p>\n

Acacia, the African country’s\u00a0No.1 gold producer,\u00a0has been embroiled in a\u00a0battle with Tanzania since 2017<\/a>, when the \u00a0government banned exports of unprocessed metal and slapped it with\u00a0a $190 billion tax bill<\/a>\u2014 equal to almost two centuries worth of revenue.<\/p>\n

The company was also forced to cut output by a third from two of its three mines in the country \u2014 Bulyanhulu and Buzwag.<\/p>\n

A “tragedy”<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Since then, the relationship between Barrick and Acacia has been strained and progress moving an agreement forward has been \u201calmost impossible,\u201d\u00a0Bristow acknowledged earlier this month<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a tragedy,” he said. “We\u2019re dealing with a complete breakdown of relationships.\u201d<\/p>\n

For\u00a0about two years<\/a>, Barrick has been leading negotiations with President John Magufuli\u2019s administration,\u00a0first under executive chairman John Thornton<\/a>\u00a0and, more recently, under Bristow.<\/p>\n

The South African geologist, who spent decades finding and building his own mines in Africa, has been considered by many analysts as the only one who could effectively end the never-ending row.<\/p>\n

Acacia has sought to resolve some of its issues with Tanzania through international arbitration.<\/q><\/p>\n

A\u00a0framework deal reached in February<\/a>\u00a0proposed that Acacia would pay $300 million to settle the tax claims and agree to split returns from operations with the country going forward. But Acacia has maintained its position that before approving any agreement its board should review it first.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn our opinion, the bid value reflects the $300 million tax payment that has been negotiated between Barrick and the government of Tanzania, which becomes payable once a resolution is ratified,\u201d Jefferies\u2019 analysts wrote last week.<\/p>\n

Acacia, which has said that much of the tax dispute stems from the period when the Canadian mining giant fully owned it, has sought to resolve some of its issues with Tanzania through international arbitration.<\/p>\n

According to sources close to the matter, Barrick may choose to postpone any decisions on the proposed takeover until then.<\/p>\n

With files from Bloomberg<\/em><\/h6>\n

The post Barrick\u2019s bid for Acacia an \u201cappropriate\u201d and \u201celegant\u201d solution to Tanzania\u2019s woes \u2014 CEO<\/a> appeared first on MINING.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The $285-million takeover bid, considered by some analysts and Acacia’s minority shareholders as a low, would see the world’s second largest gold miner buying the remaining 35% of the African miner it does not already own, at a discount.<\/p>\n

The post Barrick’s bid for Acacia an “appropriate” and “elegant” solution to Tanzania’s woes — CEO<\/a> appeared first on MINING.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[978,979,421,404,369,391,2640],"tags":[9,25,33,48,105,108],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1117982"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1117982"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1117982\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1118100,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1117982\/revisions\/1118100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1117982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1117982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1117982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}