The Financial Post reports in its Tuesday edition John Thornton is one of the many people miffed that Barrick and Newmont have never been able to combine their highly complementary Nevada operations. The Post's Peter Koven writes when he was named Peter Munk's replacement as Barrick chairman last December, he vowed to do all he could to reach some sort of co-operative agreement in Nevada. He warned it would be a difficult task, as employees of the two miners simply do not like each other. Mr. Thornton is on the cusp of a potential megamerger that would be the biggest in the history of the gold sector. While talks broke down last week, the miners have reached broad agreement on a deal that would see Barrick acquire Denver-based Newmont for about $13-billion (U.S.) in stock. Non-core assets would be spun out into a new company. Barrick and Newmont have held merger talks numerous times over the years, going back at least as far as 1991. However, personality clashes and disputes over governance, head offices and other issues always scuttled the negotiations. Both Barrick and Newmont are dealing with high debt levels, flat or declining production, geopolitical challenges and too many non-core, high-cost mines.