Fipke's PayoffA diamond hunter's bounty: Cash or gems
Geologist Fipke's payoff from Ekati to be US$49M a year
John Greenwood
Financial Post
Thursday, December 05, 2002
CREDIT: The Canadian Press
Chuck Fipke has waited 10 years for proceeds from diamond mine.
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VANCOUVER - It has been a long, bitter wait but Chuck Fipke's ship, or rather supertanker, is about to come in.
Early next year, Mr. Fipke will start receiving the proceeds from his share in a diamond mine he discovered in the barrens of the Northwest Territories in 1991.
According to BHP Billiton PLC, which bankrolled the discovery and now owns most of the Ekati mine -- considered one of the richest diamond mines in the world -- Mr. Fipke is entitled to 10% of what comes out of the ground, or about US$49-million a year for the next 20 years.
The only unknown is whether the brilliant, abrasive prospector will take payment in cash or in diamonds, as the deal allows.
Remarkably, more than a decade after he made his historic find, Mr. Fipke needs the money.
"I still haven't gotten anything significant out of this, I'm still in debt," he said in a rare interview.
"I've had to go out and borrow money, I'm still in debt $7-million or $8-million."
Mr. Fipke's life -- the subject of two books -- reads like an adventure novel. Both describe a man with a penchant for living on the edge. Tales of extramarital affairs and daring exploits are legion.
He speaks hesitantly, with a stutter and dislikes being asked his age. "Do I ask you how old you are?," he snaps.
Trained as a geologist at the University of British Columbia, he has spent most of his life hunting for diamonds and minerals in such places as Papau New Guinea, Brazil and Africa. Often he was accompanied by his then-wife Marlene, who played a major roll as organizer. At one point she even set up a mineral laboratory in the family kitchen.
More than once, Mr. Fipke found himself short of money, forced to borrow from sympathetic associates.
But the years of penury seemed to be coming to an end when he found Canada's first diamond mine in the Lac de Gras of the N.W.T. Instead, he found himself entangled in a web of lawsuits and soured business deals.
His marriage unraveled in the late 1990s. As part of one of the fattest Canadian divorce settlements ever, he gave his former wife his entire stake in Dia Met Minerals Ltd., the exploration company he founded and which owned 29% of the Ekati mine. She sold the shares last year for more than $120-million.
Fortunately, Mr. Fipke managed to hang onto what has turned out to be a more valuable piece of the action.
The mine at Lac de Gras was a joint venture between Mr. Fipke, his partner Steward Blusson, Dia Met and BHP. The two men each ended up with 10% of the mine. BHP which recently acquired the exploration firm holds the remaining 80%. What that means in Mr. Fipke's case is he is entitled to 10% of the diamonds that come out of the mine, after certain expenses and taxes.Under the deal, the partners were also on the hook for the cost of building the mine -- about $980-million.
Mr. Fipke borrowed his share of that -- $98-million -- from a group of banks. When BHP recently opted to expand the mine and buy new equipment, Mr. Fipke went to his bankers again, increasing his total debt by several million dollars.
Under his loan arrangement, he had to pay down what he owed from his share of the diamond sales. Once the debt is out of the way, the cash flows revert to him.
The mine has been running for nearly four years now and Mr. Fipke's loan is almost paid off. "Essentially, he paid off the [original] loan in October but there's another six months of baggage picked up along the way that has to be settled," said a source close to the matter.
"It's been a long haul to get this far for him, for something he started back in the 1970s. There were a lot of long, cold quiet nights."
By Mr. Fipke's reckoning, the money will start to flow around March or April.
In fiscal 2002, BHP disclosed the mine had sales of about US$491-million, meaning Mr. Fipke's share -- had it not gone to pay off the loan -- would have been about US$49-million. Of course, revenue will vary from year to year, depending on the yield and the price of diamonds. But last year's figure is a reasonable guide, BHP says.
But Mr. Fipke is bitter that his payday has taken so long to come, partly blaming Revenue Canada for the huge taxes he has had to pay. Now that the real wealth is about to flow, he would like to find a way to lower his taxes.
"You look at people, like Eugene Melnyk [chairman of Biovail Corp. who lives in Barbados] That's what most people do. He's one of the richest guys in Canada. Everybody moves, that's what's happening. You have to consider it. You really get pushed out of your own country."
jgreenwood@nationalpost.com
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