Friedland sees bright future for metals
By WENDY STUECK
MINING REPORTER
Wednesday, January 29, 2003 – Print Edition, Page B3
VANCOUVER -- Cracking jokes and citing statistics to prove his points, renowned financier and promoter Robert Friedland yesterday told an appreciative audience that mining and metals are set for a star turn as investors seek stability, profits and businesses they can understand.
"The down part of the cycle is emphatically over for real things," said Mr. Friedland, founder and chairman of Vancouver-based Ivanhoe Mines Ltd., which is currently moiling for copper and gold in Mongolia. "Real things are going to be very much back in style for a long time to come."
The collapse of technology stocks and the weakening of the U.S. dollar and other currencies once widely seen as bullet-proof have contributed to a renewed interest in metals, especially gold, Mr. Friedland said.
"The whole concept of being outside of the U.S. and wanting to hold the U.S. dollar is just not there any more," he said.
Mr. Friedland, who these days spends most of his time in Asia, is a high-profile financier best known for spinning the Voisey's Bay nickel find by Diamond Fields Resources into a sale to giant Inco Ltd. for $4.3-billion in 1996.
He spoke at the Cordilleran Exploration Roundup Conference in Vancouver and spent much of his time talking about China, which he described as the workshop of the world and the key driver behind what he predicts will be soaring demand in coming years for metals such as aluminum, gold and copper.
China's burgeoning manufacturing and construction sectors are already accounting for much of world global metal demand as the country modernizes, he said, and that demand is compounded by that from foreign companies that are setting up there to meet Chinese and international demand for their goods.
"All of the world's manufacturing capacity is gravitating to northern China as we speak," he said.
Mr. Friedland outlined three factors that will increase China's influence on the global economy: its population of under-18 residents is greater than the population of the United States and Great Britain combined, "and none of these people remember Chairman Mao"; roughly 18 million people there enter the work force each year; and young people are being educated in English through the Chinese school system.
Mr. Friedland was preaching to the converted yesterday, as the sell-out crowd indicated a good turnout for the conference and optimism that had not been seen in the industry for years.
Mr. Friedland has long attracted attention and mixed appraisals, with some criticizing him as a smooth-talking promoter who is better at raising money than building profitable mines and others pointing to his track record and deal-making ability.
Teck Cominco Ltd. chairman Norman Keevil is clearly one of the latter, noting in his thank you remarks yesterday to Mr. Friedland that "I've got about 350 million reasons to thank him."
Teck Corp. in 1996 reported a $353-million pretax gain on its investment in Diamond Fields Resources Inc. |
