The Globe and Mail reports in its Wednesday edition that Barrick Gold chief executive officer Mark Bristow is talking down the chances of buying either of his two biggest competitors, Newmont and Agnico Eagle Mines, as he shuns deal-making in favour of growing Canada's biggest gold company from the ground up. The Globe's Niall McGee writes that Barrick has sat on the sidelines in large-scale mergers and acquisitions since Mr. Bristow joined the company in 2019, after it bought Randgold Resources, a company he founded and ran for two decades. Newmont in 2018 passed Barrick as the world's biggest gold company by production, and it has widened its lead in recent years with the acquisitions of Canada's Goldcorp in 2019 and Australia's Newcrest Mining earlier this year. Barrick under Mr. Bristow attempted to buy Newmont in 2019. While he failed in his attempt to buy the whole company, he forged a joint venture around both companies' portfolios of giant Nevada gold mines, a transaction that delivered much of the strategic rationale behind the two companies merging. Four years on, Mr. Bristow is a lot less enthused about taking another run at Newmont. He says buying Newmont "doesn't make a whole pile of sense."