Susie: You deliver record underground production, beat the street, and Mother Nature still finds a way to freeze you out and dry up your dams at the same time. Welcome to Earnings Unscripted. It's August 10th, 2026, and today we're looking at Q2 for Barrick Gold, ticker B.
Miro: Right, it's definitely a messy quarter physically, but financially they look incredibly solid. If you look at the top line, revenue hit about five-point-three billion. That's up forty-four percent year-over-year.
Susie: Which is massive. And adjusted earnings came in strong too, jumping up to eighty-two cents a share. But you wouldn't know it from looking at the tape today. The stock gapped down hard pre-market and basically kept sliding to close nearly six percent lower. And just to throw it out there, we're sharing our own reads on this market action, absolutely not dispensing financial advice for your portfolio.
Miro: Well the street's reaction actually makes sense if you dig under the top line. The realized gold price actually dropped sequentially, while their sustaining costs crept up. So even though they're pulling a ton of gold out of the dirt, it's getting significantly more expensive to do it.
Susie: Yeah, plus those extreme weather events. The physical reality of running a global mining business is just wild to me. Like, they literally had to completely evacuate the Veladero operation in the Andes because of a massive winter storm.
Miro: And on the totally opposite end of the spectrum, they had to shut down another plant because the local Wiley Creek dam completely dried up. They basically had zero water to process the ore.
Susie: It's literally fire and ice. But they managed a really strong jump in sequential gold production anyway.
Miro: Exactly, because their massive tier-one assets in Nevada just carried the load. Those big sites are operating autonomously and masking the chaos everywhere else.
Susie: Okay, speaking of Nevada, I really need you to explain this sudden four billion dollar peace treaty they just struck with Newmont.Miro: It's, sorry, it's less a peace treaty and more a very expensive divorce settlement. Basically, they're ending all the historical disputes over the Nevada Gold Mines joint venture. Newmont's paying a nearly two billion dollar cash top-up, and they're tossing their key adjacent properties into the main pot. And Mark Hill actually dropped this bomb right on the call. He said, "Actually, I want to go off script straight away to make the lawyers nervous here... the total value of that package is approximately $4 billion."
Susie: Wait, if they're throwing all their properties into one giant Nevada bucket, why did you call it a divorce?
Miro: Because getting Newmont to agree on the valuation was the absolute final hurdle for Barrick to spin out its North American business into a completely separate IPO. And here's the kicker. Current CEO Mark Hill is going to leave the parent company and take the top job at the new North American spin-out.
Susie: Wow. Okay. So he builds this perfectly aligned joint venture, gets Newmont to sign off on a massive IPO, and then just calls shotgun on the new shiny company?
Miro: Exactly. And that leaves a glaring executive vacuum at the parent level. They're scrambling to find a new CEO for the international assets. Hill mentioned his preference is always internal, but they definitely don't have anyone officially lined up yet.
Susie: That feels like a huge vulnerability. You're splitting the entire operation, the architect of the deal takes the premium North American assets, and the legacy global business just gets left trying to figure out who's driving?
Miro: Right. And the legacy assets are the ones dealing with all the geopolitical headaches. I mean, just look at their cash flow this quarter.
Susie: Which dropped sharply from last year, right? I know we mentioned the bottom-line earnings beat, but how does the free cash flow collapse like that when they're hitting production targets?
Miro: Two words. Retroactive taxes. They got hit with a two hundred forty-eight million dollar bill from Mali under a brand new mining code. They're basically reaching backward into Barrick's pockets. The CFO, Helen Cai, literally said, "Excluding this, attributable free cash flow for the quarter would have been over 60% higher year-over-year."
Susie: Right. So if you're a shareholder, you're watching your cash get confiscated retroactively in West Africa, while your CEO is packing his bags for a fresh start in North America.
Miro: Yeah, the optics aren't fantastic. But honestly, even the North American side has a pretty massive capital reality check coming.
Susie: What do you mean? They just got nearly two billion in cash from Newmont. Isn't that side of the business heavily funded now?
Miro: Well, yes and no. I was going to say they're flush, but integrating those new properties means they have to process entirely different volumes of ore. They're actually considering building a new roaster or an autoclave facility in Nevada to handle it.
Susie: Okay wait, back up. What's an autoclave? Is that just some kind of giant industrial furnace?
Miro: Not quite. A roaster uses intense heat to oxidize the ore, whereas an autoclave basically pressure-cooks it with acid and oxygen. They're both incredibly expensive to build. Management estimated a new facility could cost around two and a half billion dollars.
Susie: Jeez. Two and a half billion. So this isn't just optimizing trucking routes. That's a massive, multi-year construction project.
Miro: Right, but the alternative is apparently worse for operating margins. Hill said, "By optimize, I want to look at increasing processing capacity. I want to stop trucking ore all over the state." Right now, the logistics are just chewing up their efficiency.
Susie: So they solve one bottleneck in Nevada but create a massive capital drag for the next few years. And whoever steps into that parent CEO role still has to deal with delayed projects on the other side of the world. Like Reko Diq, where they literally just admitted they won't even start building the plant this year because of escalating security issues.
Miro: Precisely. The North American spin-out gets the IPO hype, but it still needs billions in heavy metal. And the international side gets paused mega-projects and surprise tax bills.
Susie: Which really makes you wonder how the street is supposed to value the sum of these parts when they officially divorce next year.Miro: It's going to be an incredibly complicated puzzle. You essentially have one North American portfolio that needs billions in new infrastructure, and an international side bleeding cash that doesn't even have a confirmed CEO yet.
Susie: Right, Mark Hill mentioned he prefers to hire internally for that parent job, but who actually wants to step into that crossfire? It's a lot to ask of anyone.
Miro: It's a brutal assignment. But management is trying to project stability for the back half of the year. They maintained their full-year gold production target, guiding somewhere between two-point-nine and three-point-two-five million ounces.
Susie: So they're betting on a pretty clean seasonal ramp up then, with the fourth quarter acting as the historical peak?
Miro: Yes. And, actually, the ironic twist here is they also lowered their expected capital expenditure for the year. They pulled the range down to three-point-eight to four-point-two billion dollars.
Susie: Which sounds amazing for cash flow, until you realize the only reason they cut spending is because they had to freeze construction at Reko Diq over those security risks.
Miro: Exactly. They're saving money because geopolitics forced their hand, not through some grand capital discipline. That's, I mean, that's kind of the underlying theme of the whole quarter honestly.
Susie: Yeah, it really is. Operational execution just colliding head-on with foreign governments and mother nature. We'll see how long Nevada can carry the weight. Okay, that's it for Barrick's quarter. I'm Susie.
Miro: Catch you later.Susie: If you're enjoying how we break these down, subscribing is the easiest way to catch the next episode. Just to be totally transparent, this entire podcast is an AI-generated experiment, meaning both of us are synthetic voices. That's how we're able to take today's live earnings call and get a full breakdown into your feed on the very same day. We'd love to know what you think or what tickers to cover next, so drop us a note at earningsunscripted@datamadness.ca, or grab that X link in the show notes.
Miro: See you next time.
Miro: Right, it's definitely a messy quarter physically, but financially they look incredibly solid. If you look at the top line, revenue hit about five-point-three billion. That's up forty-four percent year-over-year.
Susie: Which is massive. And adjusted earnings came in strong too, jumping up to eighty-two cents a share. But you wouldn't know it from looking at the tape today. The stock gapped down hard pre-market and basically kept sliding to close nearly six percent lower. And just to throw it out there, we're sharing our own reads on this market action, absolutely not dispensing financial advice for your portfolio.
Miro: Well the street's reaction actually makes sense if you dig under the top line. The realized gold price actually dropped sequentially, while their sustaining costs crept up. So even though they're pulling a ton of gold out of the dirt, it's getting significantly more expensive to do it.
Susie: Yeah, plus those extreme weather events. The physical reality of running a global mining business is just wild to me. Like, they literally had to completely evacuate the Veladero operation in the Andes because of a massive winter storm.
Miro: And on the totally opposite end of the spectrum, they had to shut down another plant because the local Wiley Creek dam completely dried up. They basically had zero water to process the ore.
Susie: It's literally fire and ice. But they managed a really strong jump in sequential gold production anyway.
Miro: Exactly, because their massive tier-one assets in Nevada just carried the load. Those big sites are operating autonomously and masking the chaos everywhere else.
Susie: Okay, speaking of Nevada, I really need you to explain this sudden four billion dollar peace treaty they just struck with Newmont.Miro: It's, sorry, it's less a peace treaty and more a very expensive divorce settlement. Basically, they're ending all the historical disputes over the Nevada Gold Mines joint venture. Newmont's paying a nearly two billion dollar cash top-up, and they're tossing their key adjacent properties into the main pot. And Mark Hill actually dropped this bomb right on the call. He said, "Actually, I want to go off script straight away to make the lawyers nervous here... the total value of that package is approximately $4 billion."
Susie: Wait, if they're throwing all their properties into one giant Nevada bucket, why did you call it a divorce?
Miro: Because getting Newmont to agree on the valuation was the absolute final hurdle for Barrick to spin out its North American business into a completely separate IPO. And here's the kicker. Current CEO Mark Hill is going to leave the parent company and take the top job at the new North American spin-out.
Susie: Wow. Okay. So he builds this perfectly aligned joint venture, gets Newmont to sign off on a massive IPO, and then just calls shotgun on the new shiny company?
Miro: Exactly. And that leaves a glaring executive vacuum at the parent level. They're scrambling to find a new CEO for the international assets. Hill mentioned his preference is always internal, but they definitely don't have anyone officially lined up yet.
Susie: That feels like a huge vulnerability. You're splitting the entire operation, the architect of the deal takes the premium North American assets, and the legacy global business just gets left trying to figure out who's driving?
Miro: Right. And the legacy assets are the ones dealing with all the geopolitical headaches. I mean, just look at their cash flow this quarter.
Susie: Which dropped sharply from last year, right? I know we mentioned the bottom-line earnings beat, but how does the free cash flow collapse like that when they're hitting production targets?
Miro: Two words. Retroactive taxes. They got hit with a two hundred forty-eight million dollar bill from Mali under a brand new mining code. They're basically reaching backward into Barrick's pockets. The CFO, Helen Cai, literally said, "Excluding this, attributable free cash flow for the quarter would have been over 60% higher year-over-year."
Susie: Right. So if you're a shareholder, you're watching your cash get confiscated retroactively in West Africa, while your CEO is packing his bags for a fresh start in North America.
Miro: Yeah, the optics aren't fantastic. But honestly, even the North American side has a pretty massive capital reality check coming.
Susie: What do you mean? They just got nearly two billion in cash from Newmont. Isn't that side of the business heavily funded now?
Miro: Well, yes and no. I was going to say they're flush, but integrating those new properties means they have to process entirely different volumes of ore. They're actually considering building a new roaster or an autoclave facility in Nevada to handle it.
Susie: Okay wait, back up. What's an autoclave? Is that just some kind of giant industrial furnace?
Miro: Not quite. A roaster uses intense heat to oxidize the ore, whereas an autoclave basically pressure-cooks it with acid and oxygen. They're both incredibly expensive to build. Management estimated a new facility could cost around two and a half billion dollars.
Susie: Jeez. Two and a half billion. So this isn't just optimizing trucking routes. That's a massive, multi-year construction project.
Miro: Right, but the alternative is apparently worse for operating margins. Hill said, "By optimize, I want to look at increasing processing capacity. I want to stop trucking ore all over the state." Right now, the logistics are just chewing up their efficiency.
Susie: So they solve one bottleneck in Nevada but create a massive capital drag for the next few years. And whoever steps into that parent CEO role still has to deal with delayed projects on the other side of the world. Like Reko Diq, where they literally just admitted they won't even start building the plant this year because of escalating security issues.
Miro: Precisely. The North American spin-out gets the IPO hype, but it still needs billions in heavy metal. And the international side gets paused mega-projects and surprise tax bills.
Susie: Which really makes you wonder how the street is supposed to value the sum of these parts when they officially divorce next year.Miro: It's going to be an incredibly complicated puzzle. You essentially have one North American portfolio that needs billions in new infrastructure, and an international side bleeding cash that doesn't even have a confirmed CEO yet.
Susie: Right, Mark Hill mentioned he prefers to hire internally for that parent job, but who actually wants to step into that crossfire? It's a lot to ask of anyone.
Miro: It's a brutal assignment. But management is trying to project stability for the back half of the year. They maintained their full-year gold production target, guiding somewhere between two-point-nine and three-point-two-five million ounces.
Susie: So they're betting on a pretty clean seasonal ramp up then, with the fourth quarter acting as the historical peak?
Miro: Yes. And, actually, the ironic twist here is they also lowered their expected capital expenditure for the year. They pulled the range down to three-point-eight to four-point-two billion dollars.
Susie: Which sounds amazing for cash flow, until you realize the only reason they cut spending is because they had to freeze construction at Reko Diq over those security risks.
Miro: Exactly. They're saving money because geopolitics forced their hand, not through some grand capital discipline. That's, I mean, that's kind of the underlying theme of the whole quarter honestly.
Susie: Yeah, it really is. Operational execution just colliding head-on with foreign governments and mother nature. We'll see how long Nevada can carry the weight. Okay, that's it for Barrick's quarter. I'm Susie.
Miro: Catch you later.Susie: If you're enjoying how we break these down, subscribing is the easiest way to catch the next episode. Just to be totally transparent, this entire podcast is an AI-generated experiment, meaning both of us are synthetic voices. That's how we're able to take today's live earnings call and get a full breakdown into your feed on the very same day. We'd love to know what you think or what tickers to cover next, so drop us a note at earningsunscripted@datamadness.ca, or grab that X link in the show notes.
Miro: See you next time.
