North American Precious Metals Weekly: Gold M&A in the spotlight, ETFs selling gold in May, Côté gold resource grows

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North American Precious Metals Weekly: Gold M&A in the spotlight, ETFs selling gold in May, Côté gold resource grows

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North American Precious Metals Weekly

Gold M&A in the spotlight, ETFs selling

gold in May, Côté gold resource grows

Industry Overview

Barrick, reportedly, might sell its African gold assets 07 June 2026

Last week, gold sector M&A was front and center with reports of Barrick Mining (B) Equity

considering a sale of its African gold assets. We review year-to-date gold sector M&A. Americas

New World Gold Council (WGC) data showed ETF gold selling in May and central bank Gold & Precious Metals

buying in April. IAMGOLD (IAG) announced a 23% increase in the contained gold

resource at its Côté Gold mining operation in Ontario, Canada (see page 4). LawsonResearch Winder,Analyst CFA >>

Year to date gold M&A brisk; pace seems set to continue Merrill+1 416Lynch369 7592(Canada)

lawson.winder@bofa.com

After last Monday’s news from Reuters indicating that B is considering the sale of its

African gold assets to Endeavour Mining (EDV) in an all-share transaction, we review SathishResearchKasinathanAnalyst

gold sector M&A for 2026 to date. We count 26 “qualifying” (i.e. those > ~$20 million BofAS

+1 646 855 2769

(m) in equity value) gold sector M&A transactions so far in 2026. The total value of all sathish.kasinathan@bofa.com

transactions is $11.0 billion (bn) with the average price paid for “measurable” deals at Adam Smiarowski, CFA >>

$2,149 per ounce (/oz), an average discount to the prevailing gold price of 56%. Versus Research Analyst

Merrill Lynch (Canada)

historical transactions in our database, 26 transactions is the fastest pace we have seen +1 416 369 7780

since our tracking started in 1998, while also at the largest discount we have seen.