The Globe and Mail reports in its Wednesday, Nov. 26, edition that two months in, John Thornton's narrative is shaping up well. The Globe's Tim Kiladze writes that after winning a power struggle in September, he ousted former chief executive officer Mark Bristow. The story painted since then is clear: Mr. Bristow was seen as a brash leader who would not listen, feared acquisitions and struggled to work with foreign governments. Mr. Kiladze notes, however, that Mr. Thornton has stood alongside Mr. Bristow since he took the top spot. Mr. Thornton was handsomely compensated for his guidance throughout this period. His fingerprints have also been on Barrick for much longer than Mr. Bristow's. Founder Peter Munk hailed him as some sort of visionary. It is why Mr. Thornton was paid an $11.9-million signing bonus just to come on board. And yet, all Barrick has done under Mr. Thornton is underperform its gold mining peers. Until May, its shares were still down 50 per cent from their record high set during the commodity supercycle in 2011, despite gold doubling in price over that time, and Barrick traded at a deep discount to its net asset value -- 0.65 times its NAV, compared with the industry average of one times NAV.