The Globe and Mail reports in its Wednesday edition that many people have described Barrick's hostile takeover offer for Newmont Mining as audacious. The Globe's Ian McGugan writes that a better word might be "unnecessary." Unnecessary, that is, from an investor's perspective. A successful bid would no doubt do wonders for the compensation of Barrick executives, who would wind up running the biggest gold company in the world by far. However, a tie-up between Barrick and Newmont would do relatively little for gold lovers, who can already target all the precious-metals exposure they want through other channels, like an exchange-traded fund (ETF) such as the SPDR Gold Shares Fund. You get a pure play on the precious metal, with all the messy uncertainties of investing in a mine operator stripped away. History shows that Big Gold doesn't always produce big results. Over the past five years, Newmont and Barrick, have gone in opposite directions, with Newmont producing a total return of 81.6 per cent (in Canadian dollars) and Barrick saddling its shareholders with an 18-per-cent loss. However, even Newmont has not matched the payoff of some smaller miners, such as Kirkland Lake, Wesdome Gold Mines and Endeavour Mining.