RBH

My father - Ronald Bartram Heale or RBH - passed away 5 years ago today. He was 75 years of age - he had survived five heart attacks, and had beaten a double diagnosis of fourth-stage Lymphoma and Leukaemia. He died from a stroke, which was brought on by complications owing to the treatments he received to beat his cancers.

My father was the type of person who lived life without fear. He was a relentless risk-taker, especially in the field of business and investing.  

During his life as an investor and business person, he owned and/or invested in - in no particular order - Gold and Gold Exploration; Uranium; Silver and Silver Exploration; Bottled Water; Oil and Oil Exploration; Going Long on the General Market; Natural Gas and Natural Gas Exploration; Copper Exploration; Shorting the General Market, the US Dollar; Vision Devices for the nearly blind; Submarines for tourists; a Newspaper Business; the Back of a 707 Airliner; three Hotels in Northern Ontario; Biotechnology; two Bars in Toronto; and Commercial and Residential Development Land.  

His children still own a parcel of the Residential Land he bought in 1973. His grandchildren - my children - are proud owners of shares in a Submarine Company - given to them by my aunt who was convinced by my dad to buy some shares in that company long ago - as a way to remember their grandpa!  

As an investor, he had tremendous successes, and disastrous failures. His insight could be shockingly brilliant at times. 

For example, the Friday before the stock market crash on Monday, October 19, 1987, he asked his broker to sell everything he had, and short the general market. His broker talked him out of it - had he done what he asked, my father would have become a multimillionaire overnight. 

When I asked what he thought of his broker when trading ended on that memorable Monday - when it was clear that his broker had cost him literally millions of dollars by changing his mind - my father noted to me that his broker had done his job. Shorting the general market is a crazy call in normal times, and the broker's job was to keep him sane. He said that it wasn't his broker's fault that the world collapsed the very next trading day. He kept that man as his broker for years thereafter.

In spite of his brilliance and the high degree of care he always took before investing in anything, he was also occasionally victimized by some of the sleazy fu&*s who make their living bilking good people of their money through a range of illegal activities. One such fraud was called Betacom.  

This was the "Vision Devices for the nearly blind" investment noted above. In short, this company relied on financial statements that were entirely fraudulent showing that it was a profitable company with millions of dollars in revenues. In fact, it had no sales at all. The enterprise eventually collapsed in bankruptcy, with the small investors losing everything....I was out a cool $10,000 on that one. 

A few years later, I later discovered that the CEO and CFO of Betacom had both been convicted of fraud, and I asked RBH if he wanted me to bring a civil case against these people try to recover at least some of our investments (I am a lawyer and former civil litigator. I would have LOVED to have brought such a case and to have put these fu^7ing a-holes on the stand for the most uncomfortable cross-examination any humans have ever gone through...)

My father's response was an important life lesson for me. 

He said, in effect, "We move on...always press forward, leaving your losses behind, looking ahead to the victories to come.  Doing otherwise will eat you alive." 

Even with his losses, which were in the six figures, he also expressed genuine concern that the CEO and CFO, who he had met many times, were probably doing worse than we were, and that I should just leave them alone. 

RBH was loved by his many, many friends. He was a man who ALWAYS stood by people he considered to be his friends, no matter what, even if by any objective standard they had ripped him off (...these were not the only guys to do something like this to him...) He always remembered that the other guy had a story to tell, and you never know what the real story is - and that friendship trumps money every single time. 

And so, I set aside plans to sue the CEO and CFO, and noted that he was a far bigger and better man than I was in those difficult circumstances. 

Oh yes...here is an Obituary written by the friend he bought a newspaper with back in the early 1970's.  

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/columns/atkins/ron-heale-the-wildest-accountant-i-ever-knew-370928

What of his victories? 

One such victory was Linear Gold - a small exploration company, as it was in 2003. This is a longish story - please bear with me.

Linear Gold was exploring for Gold in Mexico. At one point in late 2003, we were all eagerly awaiting the results of Drill Hole 9.  From previous drill results, we strongly suspected that we had a winner and that the results would be excellent, driving the share price much higher.  

I was in Toronto at a conference that November, having arrived at my hotel on a Sunday evening. When I checked in, I was asked for my Canadian Automotive Association card. I advised them that I was not a member of the CAA, and that was that...I went to my room and settled in.

On Tuesday at about noon, I called home for messages, and learned that my father had had a heart attack, and that he was in Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto. As I was actually in Toronto, I rushed to his bedside to be there when he came to from what had been a significant ordeal.

Recall that we had been awaiting the results of Drill Hole 9. In the days leading up to this, my dad and I were debating whether or not to sell prior to the results. I was up 400%, and he was up about 800%. I wanted to take some profits, but wanted to let his winner run.

On the Tuesday morning, and before I called home for messages, I called my broker and sold half my position.  The stock stopped trading literally minutes after that, pending news - the results were in and were about to be announced.

I made it to Sunnybrook and I was at my dad's beside when he woke up.  

I watched as he slowly opened his eyes and looked at me, recognized who I was, raised his hand and pointed his finger at me and asked...."Did you sell your Linear?!"

I told him that I had dumped half my position, and that it had just stopped trading pending news.

My dad shook his head, looked me again, and said, "You fathead...!!"  That was his favourite term of endearment for me.

He was right.  

I had purchased Linear Gold at $1.20 or so share, while he bought it at $0.60 a share. I sold at $5.00 before the news came out...my dad sold between $9.00 and $11.00 as the stock rocketed after the results proved to be very positive. Linear would eventually prove up 1.7 Million ounces of Gold on the surface...the Gold is still there, but that is another story.

"Let your winners run..." My cousin Robbie - the greatest investor I know - has since told me the same thing.

Oh...one last thing.  

While I was not a member of CAA, my dad was. We are both named "Ronald Heale", albeit with different middle names.  The hotel asked me for my CAA card because they thought I was my dad - he was staying at the same hotel that I had booked into that night. 

So, while I was settling into the hotel that Sunday night in November of 2003, unbeknownst to me, my father was having a heart attack five floors above me. He would not see a doctor until late Monday.

Besides investing in the stock market and in businesses, my father invested in his family and in his friends. He was tireless in his support of my mom and his children - one son and four daughters - even working every single day to help one of my sisters with a difficult divorce while he was suffering the ravages of cancer. This is reflected in the Obituary below which he asked me to write before he died, and which he approved.

He was also tremendously generous, and believed in sharing whatever he had with others who were less fortunate. 

He sponsored immigrants from China in the 1970's when people were fleeing the Cultural Revolution. 

He supported charitable undertakings as a member of the Lion's Club for over 35 years. 

And one year, he was even Santa Claus!

Every year, the Lions Club had a toy drive for impoverished families in our town. One Christmas morning, when the time came to deliver presents the Lions discovered that one family - a mom and three young children - had moved away without leaving a forwarding address. 

RBH spent the next seven hours on Christmas Day talking to this lady's former neighbors and family member to track them down, eventually finding them living a one-hour drive away. 

He made the drive, and he was able to knock on this lady's door and delivered the presents at about 2:00 pm Christmas Day, no doubt to an utterly shocked mom, and three delighted kids who had received nothing for Christmas that morning. 

Is there any doubt that even now these people will forever remember my dad as the real Santa! 

Here is his Obituary. It still reads well five years later.

http://yourlifemoments.ca/sitepages/obituary.asp?oid=841604
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I have shown this before...here is my dad at 18, and about to launch one of the most interesting lives ever lived.

Here are two of his nine grandchildren - my children, Annie and Henry - visiting their grandpa...what a shame he did not live longer to get to know them, and for them to get to know him.

RIP RBH...you are missed every single day.