Barrick and Newmont have settled their latest Nevada dispute, Fourmile is joining NGM, and Barrick is preparing to split itself in two. Seven years after consolidation transformed Nevada gold mining, the rocks are once again helping redraw the corporate map.

Seven years ago, Barrick and Newmont reached an unlikely conclusion in Nevada: the rocks made more sense together than the companies did.

After decades of competing across the same prolific gold belts—and following Barrick’s audacious attempt to acquire Newmont in 2019—the two mining giants struck a different kind of deal. They combined their principal Nevada operations into Nevada Gold Mines, or NGM, with Barrick holding 61.5%, Newmont holding 38.5%, and Barrick taking the operator’s seat.

It was an extraordinary corporate truce built around an extraordinarily simple geological idea.

The Carlin and Cortez trends do not care where one company’s property ends and another begins.

Ore moves through geological systems, not corporate organizational charts. Mines can share infrastructure. Mills can accept ore from multiple deposits. Exploration can follow geology rather than ownership boundaries. Capital can be deployed across an integrated district instead of duplicated on either side of an arbitrary line.

In 2019, Barrick and Newmont finally decided to treat a large piece of Nevada that way.

Now, in 2026, they have done it again.

And at almost the exact same moment, Barrick has decided that what makes sense for Nevada may not make sense for Barrick itself.

Fourmile Finally Crosses the Fence

On August 10, Barrick and Newmont announced a sweeping settlement of their outstanding disputes over Nevada Gold Mines.

The headline number was hard to miss: Newmont will pay Barrick $1.95 billion in cash.

But the geology underneath the transaction may be even more important.

Barrick is contributing its Fourmile project to NGM. Newmont is contributing its Fiberline and Mike projects. The companies have agreed to revised governance provisions for the joint venture and, critically, Newmont has consented to Barrick’s proposed IPO of its North American gold assets.

That removes a potentially significant obstacle to Barrick’s planned corporate restructuring.

It also brings Fourmile into Nevada Gold Mines.

That is a remarkable development.

Fourmile has been one of the great geological wildcards sitting alongside the NGM story: a major Barrick discovery located within the broader Cortez gold universe, yet remaining 100% Barrick-owned outside the joint venture.

Corporate maps could show that distinction quite clearly.

The geology was less impressed.

Barrick has described Fourmile as one of the most significant gold discoveries of this century, and its location adjacent to the existing NGM operating complex has always made its eventual relationship with NGM worth watching.

Now we know where it is going.

Into the neighborhood.

From 100% Barrick to the NGM Machine

The mechanics deserve some attention.

Before this agreement, Barrick owned 100% of Fourmile.

Under the settlement, Fourmile enters Nevada Gold Mines, in which Barrick owns 61.5% and Newmont owns 38.5%. Newmont contributes Mike and Fiberline and, under the broader settlement, pays Barrick $1.95 billion in cash.

That means Barrick is deliberately giving up its exclusive ownership of Fourmile as part of a larger transaction that brings additional assets into the joint venture, revises governance, resolves the broader NGM dispute and delivers substantial cash consideration.

Newmont, meanwhile, gains meaningful exposure to Fourmile.

There is a capital-markets transaction here.

There is a legal settlement here.

But there is also an old-fashioned mining story here.

The transaction suggests that Barrick and Newmont now see greater value in bringing Fourmile into the integrated Nevada Gold Mines system than leaving it as a corporate island beside it.

That should sound familiar.

It is essentially the logic that created NGM in the first place.

The Marriage That Began With a Hostile Takeover

It is worth remembering just how strange the origin story of Nevada Gold Mines was.

In early 2019, Barrick—newly transformed through its merger with Randgold—launched a hostile bid for Newmont.

Mark Bristow, the architect of Randgold and then Barrick’s chief executive, argued that combining the companies could unlock enormous value, particularly in Nevada.

Newmont had other ideas.

The takeover battle ultimately fizzled, but something far more interesting emerged from the wreckage: rather than combine the entire companies, Barrick and Newmont combined their Nevada operations.

NGM was born.

The solution acknowledged something mining companies occasionally have to relearn: geological districts are not necessarily best developed according to the historical accidents of property ownership.

The resulting joint venture created the world’s largest gold-mining complex.

Barrick became operator.

Newmont became the substantial minority partner.

And one of the strangest marriages in modern mining began.

Seven Years Later, the Marriage Needed Counseling

By 2026, the relationship was showing strain.

Newmont had challenged Barrick over the management of Nevada Gold Mines, with disputes serious enough to raise the prospect of litigation. At the same time, Barrick was wrestling with its own larger problems.

Despite a historic gold-price environment, Barrick had underperformed major competitors including Newmont and Agnico Eagle. Production had declined. Operational targets had repeatedly been missed. Problems in jurisdictions such as Mali added another layer of risk.

Bristow, the man who had helped create NGM, was pushed out in 2025.

Chairman John Thornton increasingly took control of Barrick’s strategic direction.

And his answer to Barrick’s valuation problem turned out to be almost the inverse of the answer Bristow helped devise in Nevada seven years earlier.

Split it up.

Consolidate Nevada. Divide Barrick.

Barrick now plans to separate its North American assets from its broader international portfolio through an IPO targeted for completion by the end of 2026.

The company is already building the management architecture around that separation.

Mark Hill has been selected to lead the new North American company.

On August 11—just one day after announcing the Newmont settlement—Barrick named Sebastiaan Bock CEO of its “Rest of World” business, covering operations and projects across Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and Asia Pacific.

Barrick says that international portfolio currently produces more than 2 million gold-equivalent ounces annually and could grow production by more than 20% over the next three years.

The investment propositions are becoming increasingly distinct.

One company would offer investors more direct exposure to Barrick’s premier North American gold assets, centered heavily on its interest in Nevada Gold Mines.

The remaining Barrick would offer a geographically broader portfolio of gold and copper assets with greater jurisdictional complexity, potentially higher growth and significant relationships with international partners, including Chinese companies.

There is a coherent financial argument behind the strategy.

Investors who want premium North American gold exposure could buy it.

Investors comfortable with greater geopolitical risk in exchange for international growth could value that portfolio separately.

Instead of asking the market to assign one valuation multiple to two very different collections of assets, Barrick would allow the market to price them independently.

Simple enough.

Except Barrick’s own shareholders are not universally convinced.

Unlocking Value—or Selling Part of What Shareholders Already Own?

Several significant Barrick investors have publicly or privately pushed back against Thornton’s proposed IPO.

Their objection cuts straight to the heart of the “unlock value” argument.

Barrick shareholders already own these assets.

If Barrick floats a minority interest in the North American company to new investors, existing shareholders are effectively giving up part of their economic exposure to the very assets that supposedly deserve the premium valuation.

Why sell a piece of the crown jewels merely to prove that they are crown jewels?

That debate has become entangled with broader frustration over Barrick’s performance and governance. Some investors have openly questioned Thornton’s leadership, and at least one major shareholder representative has publicly suggested it may be time for a change at the chairman level.

Thornton, however, is pressing forward.

And the August agreement with Newmont removes one of the largest complications in his path.

The $1.95 Billion Handshake

The Newmont settlement therefore accomplishes several things simultaneously.

It ends the immediate dispute between the NGM partners.

It revises governance.

It brings Fourmile, Mike and Fiberline into the joint venture.

It transfers $1.95 billion from Newmont to Barrick.

And it gives Barrick Newmont’s consent to proceed with the North American IPO, removing a potentially significant obstacle to the transaction.

In other words, before Barrick can divide itself, it has first had to further consolidate Nevada.

That may be the most fascinating part of this entire saga.

The corporate strategy says separate.

The Nevada mining strategy says integrate.

Both may be right.

The Rocks Still Don’t Read the Org Chart

There is a tendency in mining markets to discuss transactions almost entirely through the language of finance.

Valuation multiples.

Free cash flow.

NAV discounts.

IPO proceeds.

Jurisdictional risk.

Shareholder returns.

All matter enormously.

But underneath the financial architecture sits something considerably older.

The geology.

Fourmile did not move.

Nobody relocated Cortez.

No fault changed orientation because Newmont and Barrick renegotiated their governance agreement.

The companies simply changed the corporate framework through which those geological assets will be developed.

And there is something wonderfully circular about that.

In 2019, Barrick and Newmont concluded that Nevada’s geology was too interconnected to be efficiently managed according to their historical corporate boundaries.

In 2026, after years of keeping Fourmile outside that structure, they have again expanded the NGM umbrella.

At essentially the same moment, Barrick has concluded that its worldwide corporate portfolio may be too diverse to be efficiently valued under one umbrella.

So Nevada comes closer together.

Barrick moves farther apart.

Together in Nevada, Apart Everywhere Else

The Nevada Gold Mines experiment has always been bigger than a conventional joint venture.

It is an acknowledgment that the scale of Nevada’s great gold systems sometimes overwhelms the neat lines humans draw across maps.

Those lines matter. Ownership matters. Governance matters. Capital matters.

But every so often the geology quietly reminds everyone who was there first.

Fourmile crossing into Nevada Gold Mines is another one of those moments.

Seven years after Barrick and Newmont discovered that Nevada made more sense together than apart, Barrick has reached almost the opposite conclusion about itself.

And perhaps there is no contradiction at all.

Consolidate the rocks.

Separate the risks.

Let the market decide what each is worth.

The next chapter of the Nevada Gold Mines saga will tell us whether John Thornton’s grand restructuring creates the value Barrick believes has been hiding inside the company all along.

But one thing already seems clear.

Whatever Barrick ultimately looks like after the split, Nevada Gold Mines just became even more Nevada Gold Mines.

The Nevada Gold Mines Saga: Together in Nevada, Apart Everywhere Else

Barrick and Newmont have settled their latest Nevada dispute, Fourmile is joining NGM, and Barrick is preparing to split itself in two. Seven years after consolidation transformed Nevada gold mining, the rocks are once again helping redraw the corporate map.

Seven years ago, Barrick and Newmont reached an unlikely conclusion in Nevada: the rocks made more sense together than the companies did.

After decades of competing across the same prolific gold belts—and following Barrick’s audacious attempt to acquire Newmont in 2019—the two mining giants struck a different kind of deal. They combined their principal Nevada operations into Nevada Gold Mines, or NGM, with Barrick holding 61.5%, Newmont holding 38.5%, and Barrick taking the operator’s seat.

It was an extraordinary corporate truce built around an extraordinarily simple geological idea.

The Carlin and Cortez trends do not care where one company’s property ends and another begins.

Ore moves through geological systems, not corporate organizational charts. Mines can share infrastructure. Mills can accept ore from multiple deposits. Exploration can follow geology rather than ownership boundaries. Capital can be deployed across an integrated district instead of duplicated on either side of an arbitrary line.

In 2019, Barrick and Newmont finally decided to treat a large piece of Nevada that way.

Now, in 2026, they have done it again.

And at almost the exact same moment, Barrick has decided that what makes sense for Nevada may not make sense for Barrick itself.

Fourmile Finally Crosses the Fence

On August 10, Barrick and Newmont announced a sweeping settlement of their outstanding disputes over Nevada Gold Mines.

The headline number was hard to miss: Newmont will pay Barrick $1.95 billion in cash.

But the geology underneath the transaction may be even more important.

Barrick is contributing its Fourmile project to NGM. Newmont is contributing its Fiberline and Mike projects. The companies have agreed to revised governance provisions for the joint venture and, critically, Newmont has consented to Barrick’s proposed IPO of its North American gold assets.

That removes a potentially significant obstacle to Barrick’s planned corporate restructuring.

It also brings Fourmile into Nevada Gold Mines.

That is a remarkable development.

Fourmile has been one of the great geological wildcards sitting alongside the NGM story: a major Barrick discovery located within the broader Cortez gold universe, yet remaining 100% Barrick-owned outside the joint venture.

Corporate maps could show that distinction quite clearly.

The geology was less impressed.

Barrick has described Fourmile as one of the most significant gold discoveries of this century, and its location adjacent to the existing NGM operating complex has always made its eventual relationship with NGM worth watching.

Now we know where it is going.

Into the neighborhood.

From 100% Barrick to the NGM Machine

The mechanics deserve some attention.

Before this agreement, Barrick owned 100% of Fourmile.

Under the settlement, Fourmile enters Nevada Gold Mines, in which Barrick owns 61.5% and Newmont owns 38.5%. Newmont contributes Mike and Fiberline and, under the broader settlement, pays Barrick $1.95 billion in cash.

That means Barrick is deliberately giving up its exclusive ownership of Fourmile as part of a larger transaction that brings additional assets into the joint venture, revises governance, resolves the broader NGM dispute and delivers substantial cash consideration.

Newmont, meanwhile, gains meaningful exposure to Fourmile.

There is a capital-markets transaction here.

There is a legal settlement here.

But there is also an old-fashioned mining story here.

The transaction suggests that Barrick and Newmont now see greater value in bringing Fourmile into the integrated Nevada Gold Mines system than leaving it as a corporate island beside it.

That should sound familiar.

It is essentially the logic that created NGM in the first place.

The Marriage That Began With a Hostile Takeover

It is worth remembering just how strange the origin story of Nevada Gold Mines was.

In early 2019, Barrick—newly transformed through its merger with Randgold—launched a hostile bid for Newmont.

Mark Bristow, the architect of Randgold and then Barrick’s chief executive, argued that combining the companies could unlock enormous value, particularly in Nevada.

Newmont had other ideas.

The takeover battle ultimately fizzled, but something far more interesting emerged from the wreckage: rather than combine the entire companies, Barrick and Newmont combined their Nevada operations.

NGM was born.

The solution acknowledged something mining companies occasionally have to relearn: geological districts are not necessarily best developed according to the historical accidents of property ownership.

The resulting joint venture created the world’s largest gold-mining complex.

Barrick became operator.

Newmont became the substantial minority partner.

And one of the strangest marriages in modern mining began.

Seven Years Later, the Marriage Needed Counseling

By 2026, the relationship was showing strain.

Newmont had challenged Barrick over the management of Nevada Gold Mines, with disputes serious enough to raise the prospect of litigation. At the same time, Barrick was wrestling with its own larger problems.

Despite a historic gold-price environment, Barrick had underperformed major competitors including Newmont and Agnico Eagle. Production had declined. Operational targets had repeatedly been missed. Problems in jurisdictions such as Mali added another layer of risk.

Bristow, the man who had helped create NGM, was pushed out in 2025.

Chairman John Thornton increasingly took control of Barrick’s strategic direction.

And his answer to Barrick’s valuation problem turned out to be almost the inverse of the answer Bristow helped devise in Nevada seven years earlier.

Split it up.

Consolidate Nevada. Divide Barrick.

Barrick now plans to separate its North American assets from its broader international portfolio through an IPO targeted for completion by the end of 2026.

The company is already building the management architecture around that separation.

Mark Hill has been selected to lead the new North American company.

On August 11—just one day after announcing the Newmont settlement—Barrick named Sebastiaan Bock CEO of its “Rest of World” business, covering operations and projects across Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and Asia Pacific.

Barrick says that international portfolio currently produces more than 2 million gold-equivalent ounces annually and could grow production by more than 20% over the next three years.

The investment propositions are becoming increasingly distinct.

One company would offer investors more direct exposure to Barrick’s premier North American gold assets, centered heavily on its interest in Nevada Gold Mines.

The remaining Barrick would offer a geographically broader portfolio of gold and copper assets with greater jurisdictional complexity, potentially higher growth and significant relationships with international partners, including Chinese companies.

There is a coherent financial argument behind the strategy.

Investors who want premium North American gold exposure could buy it.

Investors comfortable with greater geopolitical risk in exchange for international growth could value that portfolio separately.

Instead of asking the market to assign one valuation multiple to two very different collections of assets, Barrick would allow the market to price them independently.

Simple enough.

Except Barrick’s own shareholders are not universally convinced.

Unlocking Value—or Selling Part of What Shareholders Already Own?

Several significant Barrick investors have publicly or privately pushed back against Thornton’s proposed IPO.

Their objection cuts straight to the heart of the “unlock value” argument.

Barrick shareholders already own these assets.

If Barrick floats a minority interest in the North American company to new investors, existing shareholders are effectively giving up part of their economic exposure to the very assets that supposedly deserve the premium valuation.

Why sell a piece of the crown jewels merely to prove that they are crown jewels?

That debate has become entangled with broader frustration over Barrick’s performance and governance. Some investors have openly questioned Thornton’s leadership, and at least one major shareholder representative has publicly suggested it may be time for a change at the chairman level.

Thornton, however, is pressing forward.

And the August agreement with Newmont removes one of the largest complications in his path.

The $1.95 Billion Handshake

The Newmont settlement therefore accomplishes several things simultaneously.

It ends the immediate dispute between the NGM partners.

It revises governance.

It brings Fourmile, Mike and Fiberline into the joint venture.

It transfers $1.95 billion from Newmont to Barrick.

And it gives Barrick Newmont’s consent to proceed with the North American IPO, removing a potentially significant obstacle to the transaction.

In other words, before Barrick can divide itself, it has first had to further consolidate Nevada.

That may be the most fascinating part of this entire saga.

The corporate strategy says separate.

The Nevada mining strategy says integrate.

Both may be right.

The Rocks Still Don’t Read the Org Chart

There is a tendency in mining markets to discuss transactions almost entirely through the language of finance.

Valuation multiples.

Free cash flow.

NAV discounts.

IPO proceeds.

Jurisdictional risk.

Shareholder returns.

All matter enormously.

But underneath the financial architecture sits something considerably older.

The geology.

Fourmile did not move.

Nobody relocated Cortez.

No fault changed orientation because Newmont and Barrick renegotiated their governance agreement.

The companies simply changed the corporate framework through which those geological assets will be developed.

And there is something wonderfully circular about that.

In 2019, Barrick and Newmont concluded that Nevada’s geology was too interconnected to be efficiently managed according to their historical corporate boundaries.

In 2026, after years of keeping Fourmile outside that structure, they have again expanded the NGM umbrella.

At essentially the same moment, Barrick has concluded that its worldwide corporate portfolio may be too diverse to be efficiently valued under one umbrella.

So Nevada comes closer together.

Barrick moves farther apart.

Together in Nevada, Apart Everywhere Else

The Nevada Gold Mines experiment has always been bigger than a conventional joint venture.

It is an acknowledgment that the scale of Nevada’s great gold systems sometimes overwhelms the neat lines humans draw across maps.

Those lines matter. Ownership matters. Governance matters. Capital matters.

But every so often the geology quietly reminds everyone who was there first.

Fourmile crossing into Nevada Gold Mines is another one of those moments.

Seven years after Barrick and Newmont discovered that Nevada made more sense together than apart, Barrick has reached almost the opposite conclusion about itself.

And perhaps there is no contradiction at all.

Consolidate the rocks.

Separate the risks.

Let the market decide what each is worth.

The next chapter of the Nevada Gold Mines saga will tell us whether John Thornton’s grand restructuring creates the value Barrick believes has been hiding inside the company all along.

But one thing already seems clear.

Whatever Barrick ultimately looks like after the split, Nevada Gold Mines just became even more Nevada Gold Mines.