Barrick is highly likely to partner with at least one Chinese entity to pursue growth in its copper business, according to the company's chairman.
The presence of copper in the company's portfolio alongside gold had led the firm to consider whether to divest the base metal and focus on the precious metal, said the chairman, John Thornton, who added that that option was dismissed because it would not provide growth. "The gold business is inherently difficult in the sense that it's got very short-lived assets, and it's got very few Tier 1 assets. So even if you could snap your fingers, and you owned all 14 of them or all 17 of them, you'd have a problem, which is how are you going to continue to grow?'" he told a midyear town hall meeting. "And so the question for us on copper is, 'Can you take the copper assets, combine them with another party or even...