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“We strongly feel this is going to position the company as the go-to gold company going forward,” Newmont chief executive Gary Goldberg told the Financial Post in January, when the merger was announced.

Both mergers moved the center of power in each company farther away from Canada, with Barrick now led by a chief executive who lives outside the country, and Goldcorp’s headquarters moving to Colorado near Denver.

Whereas Barrick added mines in Africa, Newmont said its acquisition would concentrate more than 90 per cent of its gold reserves in the Americas and Australia — considered preferable jurisdictions by some investors.

Both come as investments in precious metals are shifting away from gold producers and towards royalty companies and exchange traded funds.

For instance, royalty and streaming companies — which provide upfront cash payments in exchange for a slice of a mine’s gold production — have grown from less than two per cent of precious metal investment dollars in 2007 to more around 17 per cent today, according to Macquarie Research.

Similarly, ETFs have grown from less than two per cent in 2008 to around 10 per cent today.

That has raised pressure on gold mining executives to increase their visibility, and Newmont remains the only gold producer listed in the S&P 500 index.

Still, Goldberg insists his company’s purchase of Goldcorp is not about growing bigger in order to gain visibility with investors.