Mark Bristow pictured at The Globe and Mail offices in May 2024, when he was the Barrick's CEO. Mr. Bristow left the company suddenly last September.Melissa Tait/The Globe and Mail
Barrick Mining Corp. paid former chief executive Mark Bristow more than US$20-million in severance last year.
Mr. Bristow departed the company suddenly last September after years of the company underperforming its peers, and after a power struggle with Barrick chair John Thornton, which was reported by The Globe and Mail.
Toronto-based Barrick was once the biggest gold company in the world by market value, but in recent years, it has slipped to third behind Colorado-based Newmont Corp. and Canada’s Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd.
Barrick in a regulatory filing on Wednesday said it paid Mr. Bristow US$22.9-million in total compensation in 2025, including cash severance of about US$20.6-million. The company paid him an additional $517,871 in benefits, including a car allowance, and tax counselling and preparation assistance.
The hard-charging South African became CEO in January, 2019, after Barrick acquired Randgold Resources Ltd., which he founded and ran for more than two decades.
Since the departure of Mr. Bristow, Barrick has made several strategic about-turns, including announcing a planned initial public offering of a minority share in its North American operations, and slowing development work on its Reko Diq copper and gold project in Pakistan. Reko Diq was deeply unpopular with investors, but long championed by Mr. Bristow.
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Barrick has also shaken up its management and board ranks significantly since Mr. Bristow left, parting ways with Kevin Thomson, senior executive vice-president of strategic matters; Christine Keener, chief operating officer for North America; and chief financial officer Graham Shuttleworth. Lead independent director Ben van Beurden also left the board after serving a little more than six months.
Barrick chair Mr. Thornton, who hand-picked Mr. Bristow for the CEO job and had the lowest approval rating of any director last year, earned US$1.2-million in 2025.
In his letter to shareholders inside the company’s information circular filed on Wednesday, Mr. Thornton said Barrick intends to grow through exploration, disciplined project development and by making “selective acquisitions.”
Under former CEO Mr. Bristow, Barrick mostly sat out the brisk mergers and acquisitions activity over the past few years that saw competitors such as Newmont, Agnico and Kinross Gold Corp. snap up competitors and add significantly to their reserves.
Mark Hill, former head of Barrick’s Latin America and Asia-Pacific region, became the permanent CEO in February, after serving on an interim basis since the departure of Mr. Bristow.
Mr. Hill made US$11-million last year, with share-based awards of US$8-million accounting for the bulk of his compensation.
Later this year, Barrick plans to spin off between a 10 to 15 per cent stake in its North American mines, including its promising Fourmile discovery in Nevada.
“North American Barrick will be the most attractive pure gold company in the world, located in the most attractive jurisdiction, with the strongest proven growth pipeline,” Mr. Thornton said in his letter.
The eventual unwinding of the North American division from the rest of Barrick will set in motion an effective unravelling of the Randgold acquisition. That transaction, the brainchild of Mr. Thornton and Mr. Bristow, broadened Barrick’s African exposure significantly, bringing mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Mali into its portfolio. Heavy exposure in those jurisdictions has long weighed on Barrick’s share price, and is now something the company plans to reverse.
“We will reduce our exposure to today’s higher-risk jurisdictions,” Mr. Thornton said.
Editor’s note: This article has been corrected to state that Newmont Corp. is based in Colorado.