South African mining giant’s purchase of Osisko highlights how some of the country’s richest mines are now managed by companies with headquarters in Switzerland, Brazil, Australia and beyond
Canada’s mining industry let out a collective groan after the $2.15-billion sale earlier this week of Toronto-based Osisko Mining Inc., which owns one of the largest, highest-grade undeveloped gold deposits in the world.
Chief executive John Burzynski couldn’t complain about the outcome; everyone who invested made money, he said. But his original goal, when he started looking for a bonanza in Canada about two decades ago, was to build a new Canadian mining giant.
Instead, the opposite happened. He discovered the Windfall gold deposit in Quebec and South Africa’s Gold Fields Ltd. promptly swallowed it up before it even became a productive mine.
“When we started out, our (goal) was to build a big company. Ultimately, we’ve ended up feeding the growth of what have become the big companies,” he said. “Throughout my career, I’ve watched, almost in horror, the decline of the Canadian mining industry. They’ve all been tipped over and sold to foreign interests.”
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