Founder & Chairman, Ivanhoe Capital
For more than 30 years, financier Robert Friedland has been recognized by leaders of the international financial sector and mineral resources industries as an entrepreneurial explorer, technology innovator and company builder. He has successfully developed a series of public and private companies which have been at the forefront of some of the world’s most notable mineral discoveries and mine developments including Fort Knox in Alaska, Voisey’s Bay in Canada, Oyu Tolgoi in Mongolia, Platreef in South Africa and Kamoa-Kakula in the DRC. Under his leadership, the Ivanhoe group and associated companies have raised more than US$25 billion on world capital markets since 1993. This capital has been invested in more than 30 nations, directed primarily at mineral resources and disruptive technologies.
Mr. Friedland is Executive Co-Chairman of Ivanhoe Mines, which is producing copper from the ultra-high-grade Kamoa-Kakula copper mine. Ivanhoe Mines completed a C$300 million initial public offering on the TSX in 2012 at a C$504 market capitalization. Over the past nine years, the market capitalization of Ivanhoe Mines has increased to over approximately C$13 billion as at January 31, 2022. Today, Wood Mackenzie ranks Kamoa Kakula as the world’s fourth largest copper deposit.
In 1994, Mr. Friedland founded Indochina Goldfields Ltd., now known as Turquoise Hill Resources and completed a C$270 million initial public offering on the TSX in 1996. In 2000, the company acquired the exploration rights for Oyu Tolgoi. After raising more than C$7 billion in equity and debt capital to fund Oyu Tolgoi’s initial development, Oyu Tolgoi has become one of the world’s largest copper-gold mines globally. Oyu Tolgoi has the potential to operate for approximately 100 years from five known deposits.
From 1994 to 1996, Mr. Friedland served as Co-Chairman of Diamond Fields and played a prominent role in its IPO on the TSX in 1994. Assuming its co-chairmanship in 1994 after the discovery of high-grade nickel at Voisey’s Bay on Canada’s East Coast, Mr. Friedland guided its financing and development, and led negotiations for its subsequent sale to INCO for C$4.3 billion in 1996.
Since 2016, Mr. Friedland also has served as Co-Chairman of Sunrise Energy Metals Limited, a publicly listed Australian company that provides innovative and sustainable solutions for metals recovery and water treatment. It also is developing its Sunrise Nickel-Cobalt-Scandium Project, in the state of New South Wales, Australia, into a leading source of battery metals for the international electric-vehicle supply chain.
In the area of disruptive technology, Mr. Friedland is Chairman of I-Pulse Inc., a private United States company founded in 2007. I-Pulse is commercializing proprietary, controlled-energy technology that aims to achieve disruptive outcomes across a wide range of industries. The technology repeatedly compresses and releases pulses of electrical energy, typically in the range of billionths of a second. This technology underpins TyphoonTM, a proprietary system that uses pulse technology to undertake best in class geological surveys cost effectively in order to efficiently evaluate mineral deposits, oil and water to depths of up two kilometers below surface and across large land areas. Typhoon is owned by Ivanhoe Electric, an American minerals and exploration company focused on advancing its portfolio of electric metals projects located primarily in the United States, of which Mr. Friedland is Chairman and CEO. Ivanhoe Electric completed a $169-million initial public offering on the NYSE in June 2022.
Mr Friedland also is Chairman of VRB Energy, an international developer and manufacturer of grid-scale, vanadium redox battery energy-storage systems. He also is a director of SES AI Corp., a NYSE-listed world leader in next generation Li-Metal battery technology.
Mr. Friedland’s enterprise and leadership gained prominent, industry recognition in January 2016 when he was inducted into the prestigious Canadian Mining Hall of Fame. The citation acknowledged his company-building and exploration achievements, honoring him as “a dynamic, transformative force in the Canadian and international mining industries” and “one of the most recognized mining personalities and achievers in the world”. In December 2021, Mr. Friedland was inducted into the American Mining Hall of Fame in recognition of his outstanding lifetime achievements advancing the American and/or global mineral resources industry.