The 65^th Sydney Mining Club Meeting

Powerpoint Presentation ---&--- Newmont Australia

When Newmont refers to itself as the world’s premier gold company – read biggest. The daughter product of the massive fusion of Normandy, Franco Nevada and Newmont-of-old now has a market cap of US$11 billion and an annual product of 7.5 million ounces (if you can imagine what 200 tonnes of gold looks like!). The final act of this grand union took place on the 20th February 2002 and this month we welcome from Adelaide MD John Dow to paint for us a picture of Newmont Australia – and the global entity – as the dust settles. A New Zealander and a geologist, John will shortly reach his 25th year with Newmont. He earned his first corporate stripes at the New Celebration discovery and then by going to Indonesia as a lone hand in 1984 and, primarily through good exploration, building a division with the Batu Hijau and Minahasa mines and a workforce of 5000 people.

Since the merger, Newmont has been globalising its operations and, merging the cultures of three quite different organisations. It has been rationalising a swag of non-core assets to make sure size translates to beauty. In the first year US$400m was raised in asset sales including equities in Lihir, Aber Diamonds, Inco warrants and Echo Bay/TVXNA, which were merged into the new Kinross. Newmont is now organised into six regional operating units with the Australian Unit representing about 25% of Newmont’s global business. Loose ends remain…smelting magnesium doesn’t do much for Newmont but it must foster its Australian Magnesium Corporation equity to realise the value in it. Perhaps most intriguing will be Newmont’s quest to maintain its 80-90 million ounce reserve base – merge or discover? Hear it all first hand.
Julian Malnic
RSVP Tuesday 3rd June 2003