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Mining shareholder value: Financialisation, extraction and the geography of gold mining

Delos Reyes, Julie Ann

[Thesis]. Manchester, UK: The University of Manchester; 2017.

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Abstract

This thesis examines the influence of institutional investors in the activities of large, publicly traded gold mining companies. As key sources of financing and dominant shareholders in company stocks, institutional investors have pushed for the maximisation of shareholder value as company goal. I examine the financial and operational realignments implemented by firms and their implications for production, growth and geography in the commodity boom and bust cycle of 2003–2015. I argue that the bid to deliver shareholder value manifested in highly fragmented, but interlinked, sites of accumulation: sharp swings in stocks and dividend payments that diverged from their actual basis in production, alongside increasing claims to future profitability through spatial restructuring. I theorise the process as contradictory-laden and crisis-prone as mineral extraction came to be mediated by the yield requirements, investment motives and risk tolerance of institutional investors. The thesis contributes to key debates on financialisation and mineral extraction within geography, political ecology and the financialisation literature.