Name Jean-Raymond Boulle | ||
Jean-Raymond Boulle (born 1950) is the founder of Diamond Fields Resources Inc. (which Inco purchased for US$4.3 billion), Diamond Fields International Ltd, America Mineral Fields Inc, and Titanium Resources Group Ltd, four publicly traded companies with deposits of nickel, cobalt, copper, zinc, titanium and diamonds.
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Early life and education
Jean-Raymond Boulle was born in Mauritius in 1950, attended Marist Brothers Rondebosch school in Cape Town and, later, the University of Dallas.
Career
Boulle worked for the De Beers Diamond Trading Company ("DTC") for ten years, in Zaire, Sierra Leone and Antwerp, Belgium, and then established Boulle Inc. in Dallas, Texas, US.
In 1984 he began exploring for diamonds, first in Minnesota, then in Arkansas. In 1987 he formed Arkansas Diamond Development Co., to carry out exploration work on the Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas.
Boulle was chairman, founder and CEO as well as a major shareholder of Diamond Fields (Diamond Fields Resources Inc. TSE:DFR) which commenced trading on the Vancouver Stock Exchange on April 6, 1993 and, in late 1994, discovered nickel, copper and cobalt ore bodies at Voisey's Bay Mine in Labrador, Canada. The Voisey's Bay Mine deposit was estimated to contain 141 million tonnes at 1.6% nickel. Boulle and Robert Friedland worked together in Diamond Fields and, in 1996, the Voisey's Bay Mine Project was purchased by Inco for CND$4.3 billion.
Boulle's next company, Diamond Fields International is involved in sea floor mining with interests in mining deposits around the world.
His Boulle Mining Group is headquartered in Luxembourg and in 1995 founded American Mineral Fields (later renamed Adastra Minerals), listed on the London Stock Exchange’s Alternative Investment Market and the Toronto Stock Exchange. Adastra Minerals developed mining projects in the Democratic Republic of Congo and a joint venture with the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo to re-treat the Kolwezi tailings project. Adastra Minerals was purchased in August 2006 by First Quantum Minerals, a mining company with dual listings on the Toronto Stock Exchange and the London Stock Exchange.
In 2001, Boulle Mining Group Luxembourg acquired the Sierra Rutile Project (a producer of natural rutile) and of the Sierra Minerals SML Bauxite Mine in Sierra Leone, West Africa which became part of Titanium Resources Group, taken public on the London Stock Exchange's Alternative Investment Market in August 2005.
His mining group's subsidiary company, Greenland Gold Resources Ltd is in Greenland exploring for nickel, copper, cobalt, platinum group elements, titanium and graphite.
Boulle Mining Group Luxembourg was the largest shareholder in World Titanium Resources, the Australian Securities Exchange listed discoverers and owners of the Toliara Sands titanium deposit in Madagascar. World Titanium Resources was delisted from ASX on 30 January 2017 and is now privately owned as World Titane Holdings Limited.
Together with the Government of Mauritius, Boulle is one of the three controlling shareholders of Omnicane, a publicly listed company on the Stock Exchange of Mauritius. Omnicane owns sugarcane plantations in Mauritius and produces refined sugar. Omnicane also generates around 30% of the island's electricity for the Grid and 40% of the country’s renewable bagasse-based energy.
Boulle's companies have conducted mining and exploration operations for gold, copper, nickel, zinc, and diamonds and other precious and semi-precious stones in South Africa, Namibia, Liberia, Madagascar, Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia, Finland, Canada, and Brazil.
Since 1996, Boulle has made numerous ongoing donations and contributions to charity, hospitals, museums, animal conservation, bird conservation and to the World Wide Fund For Nature.. His companies and respective stakeholders work closely with the Mauritian Wildlife Foundation in protecting and promoting the unique ecology of St. Brandon in Mauritius. In 2013, one of the Boulle companies' stakeholders was awarded the President's Medal by HIH Princess Takamodo of Japan for being ‘a strong supporter of the Mauritius Wildlife Foundation, encouraging and supporting their application to become a Bird Life Partner, and sponsoring their delegate to the 2013 World Conference’; for 'core contributions and service to the Bird Life Partnership'; for 'being a major contributor to Bird Life's core work through unrestricted gifts as Founder Patron’
In 2007, Boulle was made a Commander of the Order of the Rokel, the highest order of merit of Sierra Leone. This was given by the country of Sierra Leone, in recognition, for having restarted the economy of Sierra Leone with a titanium and a bauxite mine.
On 6 October 2014, Boulle's Classic Yacht Partridge 1885 won the Rolex Trophy at Les Voiles De Saint Tropez.
On 2 December 2014, the Boulle Group's Tendyne Holdings Inc. start-up company announced the world's first successful Human Heart Mitral Valve implants at the Royal Brompton Hospital in London, England.
In September 2015, Jean Boulle Medtech Ltd, a founding investor of Tendyne, announced that Abbott Laboratories (NYSE: ABT) had closed its acquisition of Tendyne. Abbott Laboratories thereby acquired the remaining shares of Tendyne it did not already own for US$250 million plus US$150 million in potential future payments tied to regulatory milestones. This acquisition culminated a relationship that began when Jean Boulle Medtech welcomed Abbott Laboratories as an early strategic investor in Tendyne. Jean Boulle Medtech worked with Tendyne's most recent investor, Apple Tree Partners, in helping to complete the transaction.
In March 2016, the Jean Boulle Luxury Group announced the launch of its patent-pending, proprietary Sun KingTM diamond compound for luxury finishes, and confirmed the delivery of the first car with this finish.
In March 2017, the Jean Boulle Luxury Group announced that its patent-pending Sun KingTM luxury diamond finish technology had been used in a paint exhibited on a Rolls-Royce Ghost Elegance (EWB) at the 2017 Geneva Motor Show.
In April 2017, the Luxury Group announced that the technology had been applied to a classic Pininfarina-styled Bentley, the Bentley Azure exhibited at the Top Marques Monaco Super Car show.
On 11 May 2017, the group signed an agreement with AkzoNobel for the production of its aviation grade Sun KingTM Diamond Coating for the private and commercial jet markets.
On 22 May 2017, the group launched the world’s first aircraft finished with Sun King diamond coating (produced by AkzoNobel in Holland) at EBACE 2017 in Geneva, the first to be covered in natural gem diamonds onto an ultra long-range Bombardier Aerospace Global Express.
Personal life
Boulle is a Mauritian citizen, and lives in Monaco.