John Thornton is the chair of Barrick Gold CorporationTIM FRASER/The Globe and Mail
Barrick Gold Corp. chairman John Thornton has been appointed chair of asset management firm PineBridge Investments.
The former Goldman Sachs president took over as Barrick chairman in April and has presided over a wave of change at the Canadian gold producer, including a new management structure.
In addition to his duties at Barrick, he will serve as the chairman of PineBridge, which has about $71-billion (U.S.) in assets under management and is majority owned by an Asian private investment group.
Mr. Thornton worked for Goldman for more than two decades and helped establish the bank's presence in China. He was chosen to lead Barrick partly because of his ties to China, a country the miner is trying to cultivate for future business ventures.
Barrick recently hired Woo Lee, one of Mr. Thornton's contacts and a former U.S. State Department agent, to act as the miner's representative in China.