Transcript
Introduction
"With typical impatience, he had been searching for a shortcut. 'Promoting a stock is like making a movie,' Friedland said. 'You've got to have stars, props and a good script.' Lately, good scripts had been hard to come by. Friedland's reputation as a daring penny-stock promoter with a Midas touch was unraveling with the collapse of his high-flying gold mining company, Galactic Resources. "13 months earlier, Galactic had sought bankruptcy protection in the wake of pollution and regulatory problems at its Colorado gold mine. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was billing the Colorado mine as one of the country's worst environmental mining disasters, and the U.S. Justice Department had launched a criminal investigation.
"Compounding matters, Friedland's backup script, a hot gold play in Venezuela, was on its last legs. Most major investors already shunned the 43-year-old mining promoter. And now he was marooned in the middle of nowhere with a handful of his remaining adherents. "'This is a historic occasion,' he began. 'They used to shoot people who entered the territory. Now you are part of a select group that has been allowed in. We are very proud of the company that has brought you here. In the year since Diamond Fields was founded, we have accomplished a great deal. We now have two diamond mines and the marine concession you see before you. These are the building blocks for a great major mining company.'
"Friedland sprang to his feet and begin to work the crowd, moving deftly from table to table. He quickly assumed an easy familiarity with his guests then launched into a passionate and impressive-sounding discussion of the area's diamond potential. 'By the time this stuff hits the water, 90%, do you hear me, nine-zero, is going to be gem quality and over one carat."
"He gestured seaward. 'And the diamonds are there, just lying on the gravel, waiting for us to suck them up.' Robert Friedland had won his visitors. Jean Boulle for one wasn't surprised. In his short year and a half with the charming American, he had learned that there was nothing Friedland could not sell."
That was an excerpt from the book that I'm going to talk to you about today, which is The Big Score: Robert Friedland and the Voisey's Bay Hustle. And it was written by Jacquie McNish. So this is another example of a book I didn't know existed. It was recommended to me by a listener. So let's not waste any time and jump right into the book. I want to tell you something I wish I knew upfront when I read it. So the title The Big Score, what does that mean? This book is fundamentally about Robert Friedland having a company, a mining company that accidentally discovers the largest nickel deposit in, I think, North American history, and he winds up selling that. Even though he invests, I think, less than $1 million upfront, he winds up selling that for $4.1 billion. And so the book is about how this happens.