by Peter Koven
Financial Post Business
New Gold Inc. was braced for a vicious backlash from the investment community when it decided to hedge some gold production earlier this month.
After all, hedging is the gold industry’s ultimate dirty word. It became such a toxic subject during the last decade that most chief executives decided that even talking about it was off limits. And New Gold is led by Randall Oliphant, who headed up Barrick Gold Corp. back when it had the biggest — and most reviled — hedge book in the business.
But the response to New Gold’s move wasn’t negative. Instead, almost everyone cheered.
“We’ve heard nothing but positive reactions from shareholders, analysts and media people to what we did,” said Oliphant, New Gold’s executive chairman. “So that will give other people who want to do this sort of stuff some ammunition.”