Barrick Earnings: Very Strong, Driven by the Gold Bull Market

Key Morningstar Metrics for Barrick Mining

• Fair Value Estimate: $30
• Morningstar Rating: ★
• Morningstar Economic Moat Rating: None
• Morningstar Uncertainty Rating: Medium

What We Thought of Barrick Mining’s Earnings

Barrick’s fourth-quarter adjusted net profit after tax more than doubled year on year, to $1.8 billion ($1.04 per share)—the booming gold price more than offset rising unit cash costs. With lower sales volumes, this drove 2025 adjusted NPAT up 87%, to $4.1 billion ($2.42 per share).

Why it matters: Full-year results exceeded our estimate, the biggest driver being higher-than-expected gold sales volumes in the fourth quarter. Near-term volume guidance is moderately lower than we expected, but this is broadly offset by lower unit cash cost guidance.

• It won’t repurchase additional shares in favor of increasing its quarterly base dividend to $17.5 cents per share, from $12.5. A potential top-up dividend will also be payable in the fourth quarter, consistent with its new target to pay out 50% of annual attributable cash flow.
• It will also proceed with an IPO of its North American gold assets. NewCo will hold a 61.5% interest in Nevada Gold Mines and 60% stake in Pueblo Viejo, along with its attractive 100%-owned Fourmile deposit next to NGM. It intends to sell a small 10% to 15% stake in NewCo in the IPO.

The bottom line: Our $30 fair value estimate for no-moat Barrick is retained, with the changes to our forecasts immaterial. Ceasing share buybacks is sensible, given they are value-decretive, with shares trading about 50% above fair value.

• This is likely driven by spot gold of $5,000 per ounce being more than double our assumed midcycle price of $2,050 based on our estimate of the long-run marginal cost of production.

Coming up: All things equal, the surging gold price also means we think it is better to be undertaking countercyclical sales of gold mines rather than buying them. So we are inclined to support the IPO, though we await full details before finalizing our view. It is targeted to occur by the end of 2026.