Moody’s upgrades Barrick’s ratings
Barrick Gold has announced that Moody’s Investors Service has upgraded the senior unsecured ratings of Barrick and all rated subsidiaries to Baa1 from Baa2, with a Stable outlook.
Moody’s noted that Barrick’s liquidity is excellent, which provides significant flexibility to maneuver through gold price volatility.
Senior executive vice-president and chief financial officer Graham Shuttleworth said “this upgrade reflects the significant progress that Barrick has made in strengthening our balance sheet since the merger with Randgold.
“The improvements that we’ve made to our operations combined with increased gold prices have led to the generation of strong operating and free cash flows, enhanced liquidity, and a reduction in net debt, and we expect to continue to build on these achievements going forward.”
On 1 January 2019 a new Barrick was born out of the merger between Barrick Gold Corporation and Randgold Resources. Shares in the new company trade on the NYSE (GOLD) and the TSX (ABX). The merger has created a sector-leading gold company which owns five of the industry’s Top 10 Tier One gold assets (Cortez and Goldstrike in Nevada, USA (100%); Kibali in DRC (45%); Loulo-Gounkoto in Mali (80%); and Pueblo Viejo in Dominican Republic (60%)) and two with the potential to become Tier One gold assets (Goldrush/Fourmile (100%) and Turquoise Ridge (75%), both in the USA). With mining operations and projects in 15 countries, including Argentina, Australia, Canada, Chile, Côte d’Ivoire, DRC, Dominican Republic, Mali, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, USA, and Zambia, Barrick has the lowest total cash cost position among its senior gold peers and a diversified asset portfolio positioned for growth in many of the world’s most prolific gold districts. https://www.barrick.com
