VENTURE CAPITAL POST

Due to a cyanide spill in a mine in Argentina, Canadian-owned Barrick Gold is facing a fine of $9.3 million imposed by the local government. Nine current and former employees are also being held as defendants over accusations of negligence that caused the spill.

China Gold International, a Vancouver-based gold miner, is interested in acquiring gold or copper mines in Canada, but is not willing to overpay for it. China Gold is backed by China's biggest gold producer China National Gold.

The following bids, mergers, acquisitions and disposals were reported on Wednesday including Sinopec, Apache, AMR, US Airways, Deutsche Bank, EDF, Oxford, Andor, Bank Zachodni WBK, Shuanghui, Campofrio, OCZ, Toshiba and CVS Caremark.

Teck Resources, Newmont Mining, Magris Resources and private equity firm Blackstone Group are reportedly bidding for Glencore Xtrata's Las Bambas copper mine in Peru. Las Bambas' estimated end-2014 valuation is at USD6.9 billion.

Canadian large-scale gold mining companies Barrick Gold and Goldcorp have separately hired banks to explore the sale of their jointly owned Marigold mine in Nevada.

The halt of its Pascua-Lama project as well as gold price decline had forced Barrick Gold to sell of shares to raise much needed funds.

Barrick Gold reviewed options for raising cash and reducing debts

Newmont Mining Corp CEO Gary Goldberg said they were looking at potential mine acquisitions as the value of gold fell.

Barrick Gold Corp may take a writedown of about US$5.5 billion for its Pascua-Lama venture after gold's value shrunk.

Bids, mergers, acquisitions and disposals involving European, U.S. and Asian companies.