| ------ | Edit your message |
To: Michael Brody (16 )
From: Adrian du Plessis Jan 3 1997 5:19PM EST
Reply #17 of 17
FYI, audio-taped discussion of various deals (mostly in Asia) by Robert Friedland is beginning to be heard in Canada. For those who don't get to read local newspapers or follow broadcast media coverage, I've posted a related item on my web-page (see introductory text below).
Happy New Year to all.
Robert Friedland tapes reveal "rough and tumble" penny stock world... (X-reference DiamondWorks, Indochina Goldfields, First Dynasty, Royal Plastics, Lateral Vector etc.)
Candid audio-tapes of humanitarian stock promoter Robert Friedland (the man behind such public ventures as mega-disaster Galactic Resources Ltd. and giga-success Diamond Fields Resources Inc.) in conversation with business associates have surfaced. The Vancouver Sun, the first media outlet to air portions of the lengthy tapes (in an article, "Fugitive stood to gain from DiamondWorks", its December 31 1996 edition) says the tape recordings "provide a rare insight into the rough and tumble world of junior capital financing which Friedland inhabits."
As well as exposing a darker, at times abusive, side of a personality so regularly in the Canadian business news, the tapes reveal that several recent Chinese ventures associated with Friedland -- ranging from a casino deal to plastic house construction -- have been beset by foul-ups and/or failure.
As one example, not long ago, Canadian journals were recounting Friedland's boosterish spiel about his Shanghai Land Holdings building plastic houses in China in partnership with Toronto Stock Exchange-listed Royal Plastics Group Ltd. But, now, in Friedland's own words, an Asian business associate, Bill Zheng (a fugitive from Taiwanese justice for many years), "has left me with. smoking embers. That's all I've got. There was a partnership with a Chinese fund for handicapped that was supposed to deliver all kinds of wonderful shit, and all they did was screw us. So today I'm here talking with my partner, Royal Plastics, and we're trying to explain where the $10 million went and why everything is a total disaster."
The tapes are apparently so full of foul language that the Sun, being a family newspaper, rather than going the Richard M. Nixon route and printing (expletives deleted) frequently, in quoting Friedland has dropped much of the objectionable language in favour of ellipses. (Seeing as how the internet is not a family paper, full text versions can be expected to appear on-line. Readers are forewarned that if the Friedland et al tapes were a rap record they would definitely come emblazoned with a parental advisory sticker.)
In addition to TSE-listed Royal Plastics and Lateral Vector Resources (an oil and gas joint venturer with Friedland's Sunwing Energy), the controversial promoter refers to other deals, including Vancouver-listed Carson Gold Corp. -- recently renamed DiamondWorks Inc. DiamondWorks' announced acquisition of China's largest operating diamond mine collapsed recently and the VSE junior now says it will generate tremendous revenues from diamond prospects in Sierra Leone and Angola where it has associated itself with a controversial South African mercenary outfit, Executive Outcomes.
DiamondWorks is the latest Friedland-related promotion to have raised millions from Canada's mutual funds. A (Cdn.) $25 million private placement of DiamondWorks stock closed last month, but, the institutional placees have yet to be publicly identified. (This should occur any day now.) In October 1996, DiamondWorks director Eric Friedland (Robert's younger brother) named the company's major backers as including AGF, Robertson Stephens, and Fidelity's True North fund (the Veronika Hirsch vehicle).
Although some (expletives deleted) have themselves been deleted, the sections of audio-tape transcribed by the Sun's reporters do provide an unique look behind the curtain of business-speak that's often drawn by corporate spokespersons. For those willing to read between the dots, the newspaper, in its year-end 1996 coverage, offers investors a much franker look at a big player in the junior stock market than it did with its final, December 30, 1995 feature on Robert Friedland which duly noted such trivia as "the only black shoes the multi-millionaire tycoon has are thick-soled brogues."
Friedland's material concerns are now seen to be more substantial than how he "fusses unsuccessfully with his Hugo Boss tie" or lacks the right shoes for a wedding party tux. He's plagued by the corporate legacy of his dealings with fugitive Bill Zheng (wanted in Taiwan to face charges stemming from alleged white collar swindling to kidnapping and extortion). The promoter insists that when he entered into his arrangements with Zheng he was unaware of the litany of alleged criminal activities involving the multi-named Zheng. It is not clear from the tapes made public so far, at what precise point Friedland first learned of Zheng's background and whether or not he continued to deal with him after such point.
Displaying the sort of pragmatism that may be admired in the warrior entrepreneurs of the junior stock markets, Friedland explained Zheng's value to one associate: "He really did introduce me to (Chinese leader) Deng Xiaoping's family. It really and truly happened. So he could be the devil incarnate, it doesn't matter."
For more on this story and other stock market news and culture items visit the Big Top, Sideshow and Midway section of the howenow web-site presently under construction @ imagen.net |
