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On paper, Robert Friedland’s influence on the Canadian mining world seems to be waning. The legendary promoter showed a rare sign of weakness this year, losing control of Ivanhoe Mines and its massive Oyu Tolgoi copper mine in Mongolia to British-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto, and Friedland has seemingly disappeared from public view. So why can’t people stop talking about him?
Because love him or hate him, there’s no disputing Friedland’s imprint on the industry. From mastering the art of mining stock promotion in the 1980s and 1990s, to correctly calling the China boom and forging business ties with Asia in the 1990s and early 2000s, Friedland has always been the trailblazer everyone else tries to follow. In the few months the self-made billionaire has spent out of the limelight, investors have speculated wildly about when and where he will pop up next. Such speculation has never been easy where Friedland is concerned.
After a stint as a hippie in the 1970s, during which he befriended Steve Jobs, Friedland embraced the junior mining world and set up shop in Vancouver. He has rarely strayed from the headlines in the years since. He developed a big gold mine in Colorado, which was later shut down after an environmental accident (earning Friedland the “Toxic Bob” nickname that still sticks). He led the discovery and sale of the Fort Knox mine in Alaska. He found the massive Voisey’s Bay nickel deposit in Labrador, and flipped it for a stunning $4.3 billion. He built a mine in junta-controlled Myanmar that has drawn the fury of human rights groups.
And then there was Mongolia, which turned out to be the biggest and toughest score of Friedland’s career. When Ivanhoe discovered Oyu Tolgoi in 2001, it was immediately clear the company was sitting on one of the world’s greatest copper-gold deposits. But most investors shrugged it off. They just couldn’t accept that a small Canadian company could develop a mine in the inhospitable Gobi Desert, let alone one so big that it would make up a third of Mongolia’s GDP.
Friedland made it happen. After years of protests, political upheavals and cost over-runs, Oyu Tolgoi should enter commercial production next year. Unfortunately, the financial and technical burdens of such a massive project proved too much for Friedland to overcome on his own. He brought in Rio Tinto as a partner in 2006, and ultimately ceded control of Ivanhoe in April after losing a prolonged legal battle over Rio’s shareholder rights. “At the end, he was at the mercy of the courts and the markets. There wasn’t much he could do,” says Terry Ortslan, an independent mining analyst and consultant.
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