South Africa's Gold Fields tries to buy Australia's biggest gold miner and gets turned down

Gold Fields approached Northern Star Resources about buying it and was turned down, Bloomberg reported on Saturday, Sept. 26, citing people with knowledge of the matter.

Northern Star is the largest gold miner in Australia, worth about A$31.5 billion, or $22.1 billion. Gold Fields, which is listed in Johannesburg and New York, carries a market value of roughly $35.7 billion.

Buying it would create one of the largest gold producers in the world. Gold Fields has been considering what to do next since the rebuff.

Timing explains the approach. Northern Star shares have fallen 17% in Sydney this year while the gold price has been setting records, and the company has cut its production guidance repeatedly, held back by problems at its Kalgoorlie processing plant in Western Australia. It now expects to produce between 1.5 million and 1.65 million ounces.

Gold Fields is having the opposite year. It said it will hit the upper end of its guidance of 2.4 million to 2.6 million ounces for the 2026 financial year, helped by a strong performance from its Salares Norte mine in Chile, and its shares are down only 9%.

Somebody else has been pushing Northern Star towards a sale. Elliott Investment Management, the American activist investor, has spent the year criticising the company's performance, calling for asset sales or a sale of the whole business, and demanding changes to its board. Northern Star named a new chief executive in July under that pressure.

Gold Fields has bought in Australia before. It completed a A$3.7 billion purchase of Gold Road Resources in September 2025, which gave it full ownership of the Gruyere mine in Western Australia after nine years as a joint venture partner there, and it bought Canada's Osisko Mining for about $1.4 billion in October 2024.

Gold Road rejected its first offer too. Gold Fields approached in March 2025 with a $2.1 billion proposal, was told it was opportunistic and materially undervalued the company, and came back in May with a sweetened bid worth about $2.4 billion at a 43% premium.

Mike Fraser runs Gold Fields as chief executive.

Consolidation has been running through the gold industry since Newmont paid $17.5 billion for Australia's Newcrest Mining, the largest takeover the sector has seen. Record prices have given the biggest producers cash and share currency to spend, and Australia holds the deposits they want.

Neither company has commented publicly on the approach.