Voisey's Bay is the site of a massive nickel deposit whose vast potential has riveted the attention of the international business world. The discovery of the deposit in Labrador, the struggles for controlling interest in it, and especially the extraordinary players involved drive this amazing business story, which often reads like a suspense novel. At the centre is Robert Friedland, an ex-hippie and disgraced Vancouver stock promoter, who by sheer luck ended up holding all the cards in a high-stakes poker game that pitted some of the world's most powerful and conservative mining companies against each other. When news of the Voisey's Bay motherlode began to circulate, nickel giants such as Inco and Falconbridge were swept up in the excitement, competing in a series of takeover bids for control of Diamond Fields, the company that controlled the find. It all culminated in Inco's winning $4.3-billion offer, the largest takeover price ever paid for mining property. But was the deal one of the riskiest gambles in business history? From Namibia and Singapore to the boardrooms of Toronto and Vancouver, The Big Score uncovers the big money deals, the power struggles, and the hype in an immaculately researched and compelling drama of international intrigue.

Big Score: Robert Friedland, Inco, and the Voisey's Bay Hustle

Business & Money

McNish, Jacquie

Business Development & Entrepreneurship

Doubleday, Canada

From the windswept Labrador coast, where the massive nickel deposit was discovered, to the boardrooms of Singapore, Toronto, and Vancouver where the giant poker game for Diamond Fields was played out, the story behind Voisey's Bay has enormous economic significance for Canada and international financial markets. One of the most intriguing elements was the takeover battle for Diamond Fields that pitted the conservative management team at the world's largest nickel company, Inco Ltd., against free-wheeling stock promoter Robert Friedland. Also playing key roles in the race for Voisey's Bay were managers from the Bronfman-controlled Edper group, prominent Wall Street and Bay Street investment houses, and leading mutual funds.

The Big Score: Robert Friedland, INCO, And The Voisey's Bay Hustle

Investing

Wrong Way : The Rise and Fall of Conrad Black

Biographies & Memoirs

Stewart, Sinclair

Professionals & Academics

Penguin Books Canada, Limited

Over the next 20 years more than 7 million Canadian workers will retire. Baby boomers, the 45- to 65-year-olds who account for 42% of the country's workforce, will join the largest job exodus in Canadian history, moving to the promised land of retirement. Unless our crumbling pension system is reformed, many of these retirees will find this dreamland a bewildering and disappointing mirage. In the early 1980s, consumers were setting aside 20% of their disposable incomes to their retirement plans; today the savings rate is a threadbare 2.5%. Retirement savings plans meant to build Canadians' personal war chests for their final years have failed to live up to their cheery promises of early retirement "freedom" - market returns are low, and financial fees are climbing. Moreover, retirement plans are now being compromised by high pension obligations and a shrinking workforce. Canada has the capacity to diffuse this ticking pension time bomb with some hard choices, posits Leech. It's time for businesses, governments, unions, and employees to face these options and fix - and ultimately save - our pensions system, taking examples from Holland, New Brunswick, and Rhode Island - places in which new laws have been adopted to repair the pensions programs.

The Third Rail: Confronting Our Pension Failures

Leech, Jim

Personal Finance

Signal

Short-listed for the 2015 Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year 
A Wall Street Journal Best Business Book of 2015
A Best Business Book of the Year, Forbes Magazine A Times of London Book of the Week
Best Narrative Business Book of 2015 by Strategy+Business In 2009, BlackBerry controlled half of the smartphone market. Today that number is less than one percent. What went so wrong? 
Losing the Signal is a riveting story of a company that toppled global giants before succumbing to the ruthlessly competitive forces of Silicon Valley. This is not a conventional tale of modern business failure by fraud and greed. The rise and fall of BlackBerry reveals the dangerous speed at which innovators race along the information superhighway. 
With unprecedented access to key players, senior executives, directors and competitors, Losing the Signal unveils the remarkable rise of a company that started above a bagel store in Ontario. At the heart of the story is an unlikely partnership between a visionary engineer, Mike Lazaridis, and an abrasive Harvard Business school grad, Jim Balsillie. Together, they engineered a pioneering pocket email device that became the tool of choice for presidents and CEOs. The partnership enjoyed only a brief moment on top of the world, however. At the very moment BlackBerry was ranked the world's fastest growing company internal feuds and chaotic growth crippled the company as it faced its gravest test: Apple and Google's entry in to mobile phones. 
Expertly told by acclaimed journalists, Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff, this is an entertaining, whirlwind narrative that goes behind the scenes to reveal one of the most compelling business stories of the new century.

Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry

Silcoff, Sean

Biography & History

Flatiron Books

In 2009, BlackBerry controlled half of the smartphone market. Today that number is one percent. What went so wrong? 
Losing the Signal is a riveting story of a company that toppled global giants before succumbing to the ruthlessly competitive forces of Silicon Valley. This is not a conventional tale of modern business failure by fraud and greed. The rise and fall of BlackBerry reveals the dangerous speed at which innovators race along the information superhighway. 
With unprecedented access to key players, senior executives, directors and competitors, Losing the Signal unveils the remarkable rise of a company that started above a bagel store in Ontario. At the heart of the story is an unlikely partnership between a visionary engineer, Mike Lazaridis, and an abrasive Harvard Business school grad, Jim Balsillie. Together, they engineered a pioneering pocket email device that became the tool of choice for presidents and CEOs. The partnership enjoyed only a brief moment on top of the world, however. At the very moment BlackBerry was ranked the world's fastest growing company internal feuds and chaotic growth crippled the company as it faced its gravest test: Apple and Google's entry in to mobile phones. 
Expertly told by acclaimed journalists, Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff, this is an entertaining, whirlwind narrative that goes behind the scenes to reveal one of the most compelling business stories of the new century.

It was a classic modern business story: two Canadian entrepreneurs build an iconic brand that would forever change the way we communicate. From its humble beginnings in an office above a bagel store in Waterloo, Ontario, BlackBerry outsmarted the global giants with an addictive smartphone that generated billions of dollars. Its devices were so ubiquitous that even President Barack Obama favoured them above all others. But just as it was emerging as the dominant global player, BlackBerry took a dramatic turn.
Losing the Signal is the riveting, never-before-told story of one of the most spectacular technological upsets of the 21st century. Unlike Enron, which was undone by its executives' illegal activities, or Lehman Brothers, which collapsed as part of a larger global banking crisis, BlackBerry's rise and fall is a modern-day tale of the unrelenting speed of success and failure. It is a thrilling account of how two mismatched CEOs outsmarted more-powerful competitors with a combination of innovation and sharp-elbowed tactics; and how, once on top of the world, they lost their way. The company responded too slowly to competitors' innovations, and when it finally made its move, it stumbled with delayed, poorly designed and unpopular smartphones. A little more than a decade after Research In Motion introduced the BlackBerry, it is now struggling to survive. Its share of the US phone market fell from 50 per cent in 2009 to about one percent in 2013, showing just how aggressive, fast and unforgiving today's global business market can be.

Losing The Signal: The Spectacular Rise And Fall Of Blackberry

HarperCollins, Publishers

Winner of the National Business Book Award and #1 National Bestseller
Losing the Signal is the riveting untold story of how BlackBerry engineered one of the most spectacular technological upsets of the twenty-first century before it lost its way in the fog of smartphone wars, management indecision, and the breakdown of one of the most successful partnerships in the history of Canadian business. Its rise and fall is a cautionary tale of the unrelenting speed of modern success and failure.
At the heart of the story are two mismatched co-CEOs—Mike Lazaridis, a bookish innovator, and Jim Balsillie, an aggressive entrepreneur—who grew their company from humble beginnings above a bagel store in Waterloo, Ontario. Harnessing innovation and sharp-elbowed tactics, BlackBerry’s bosses outsmarted powerful international competitors and built a global business in a little more than a decade with an addictive phone that changed the way we communicated. BlackBerry’s devices were so ubiquitous that even President Barack Obama favoured them above all others. Just as BlackBerry was emerging as the dominant global player, internal fault lines hobbled the company at the very moment its smartphone crown was challenged by stronger competitors: Apple, Google and Samsung. When the Canadian company finally made its move, it stumbled with delayed, poorly designed and unpopular handheld devices that took it out of the race. Only fifteen years after the BlackBerry was launched, the company is struggling to survive. Its share of the U.S. phone market fell from fifty per cent in 2009 to less than one percent by the end of 2014.
Written by veteran journalists Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff, Losing the Signal is an enduring study of a technology that defined a generation, in a ferocious industry that leaves little margin for error.

Losing The Signal: The Spectacular Rise And Fall Of The Blackberr

Tautly written and fast-paced, Wrong Way chronicles the excesses of a larger-than-life entrepreneur whose autocratic temperament and management style would prove to be his undoing. It is a testament to the rise of shareholder activism and a cautionary tale of corporate cronyism at its worst.

Wrong Way: The Fall of Conrad Black

Sinclair, Stewart

Overlook Books

Random House Business

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by McNish, Jacquie. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by McNish, Jacquie

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by McNish, Jacquie. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Big Score: Robert Friedland, Inco, and the Voisey's Bay Hustle

The Big Score: Robert Friedland, INCO, And The Voisey's Bay Hustle

Wrong Way : The Rise and Fall of Conrad Black

The Third Rail: Confronting Our Pension Failures

Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry

Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry

Losing The Signal: The Spectacular Rise And Fall Of Blackberry

Losing The Signal: The Spectacular Rise And Fall Of The Blackberr

Wrong Way: The Fall of Conrad Black

Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry