By Alistair MacDonald
Barrick Gold Corp. said its chief financial officer, Ammar
Al-Joundi, will leave the company, in another senior-personnel move
at the world's largest gold miner following the arrival of Chairman
John Thornton.
Mr. Al-Joundi will be replaced by Shaun Usmar as CFO on Feb. 18,
the company said in a statement. Mr. Usmar was a CFO in units of
fellow miner Xstrata PLC, which was taken over by Glencore
International PLC in 2013.
Mr. Thornton "continues to put his stamp on the company as he
substantially re-builds the executive team," Greg Barnes, an
analyst at TD Securities said in a research note. The appointment
of an executive from a diversified miner like Xstrata could show
that Barrick wants to move further away from its focus on gold, Mr.
Barnes added.
Mr. Al-Joundi is a well-known executive in mining circles who
had been at Barrick, in two different stints, for more than a
decade. He spent 11 years at the company before leaving to join
Agnico-Eagle Mines Ltd in 2010 and then rejoining Barrick two years
later.
"This was a mutual agreement that the time was right for a
transition in leadership in the finance function," a Barrick
spokesman said.
Mr. Thornton became sole chairman in April this year with the
retirement of founder Peter Munk. Since then the miner has seen
several changes in its senior personnel. In July, Chief Executive
Officer Jamie Sokalsky left the company to be replaced by a dual
chief executive role that, analyst said, effectively left Mr.
Thornton in control of the miner, something the company denied. In
that month, Barrick had promoted Mr. Al-Joundi to senior executive
vice president from executive vice president.
Since then, other staff, including the head of corporate
development and general counsel, have left or been replaced.
Like other gold miners, Barrick has been hit hard by a decline
in the price of gold and troubles in some of its major projects in
developing markets. The company shares have lost a third of their
value this year-to-date.
Mr. Thornton arrived at the company after the aggressive
expansion that is blamed for much of the company's current
problems, including its large debt pile and some of the troubled
projects in emerging markets. Many investors, though, say the
former Goldman Sachs banker still has to prove himself at Barrick.
Mr. Thornton, for instance, said that the miner would look to build
bridges with Chinese funds and company, something, investors say,
they have yet to see evidence of.
Several investors also said they were surprised to see Mr.
Thornton, who has been criticized for his large pay packet at
Barrick, recently take a role as nonexecutive chairman of the asset
management firm PineBridge Investments.
The Barrick spokesman said Mr. Thornton has "significantly
reduced" the number of boards that he sits on since joining Barrick
and that the asset manager is a private company.
Write to Alistair MacDonald at alistair.macdonald@wsj.com
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