Jolly gold giant

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Peter Munk is as sprightly an 80-year-old as you are likely to meet. That is just as well. On March 27th Barrick Gold, the world’s biggest gold-mining firm, announced that its chairman would temporarily take over as chief executive, a role Mr Munk relinquished in 1999, while Greg Wilkins, the company’s current boss, undergoes medical treatment. Barrick’s shareholders were unperturbed; its share price hardly flinched. And with good reason. Mr Munk, who founded Barrick in 1983, is mainly responsible for what he calls the “happy miracle” that has propelled the Canadian mining firm from its beginnings as a small oil and gas company to a golden giant. And Mr Munk’s enthusiasm for the business appears undimmed.

An open-necked polo shirt and genial demeanour lend Mr Munk the air of a retired professor, rather than the architect of a company now worth $38 billion, with 27 mines on five continents. His informality extends to a faint amusement that anyone would deem it necessary to wear a tie in his presence. And he cheerfully acknowledges the role of fate, saying that success comes through being “lucky, smart and getting the timing right—the stars have to cross”. But he also admits to a driving ambition, which an early setback did little to dent. Clairtone, an upmarket television and hi-fi manufacturer which he founded in 1958, competed with the big Western brands before collapsing under the onslaught of Japanese electronics firms. Undeterred, Mr Munk went on to build the biggest hotel-chain in Australasia, despite a lack of previous experience in the industry. He also amassed a substantial American commercial-property company, Trizec, which he sold for $4.8 billion in 2006, just before property shares took a beating. But it is his gold business that continues to prosper.