Newfoundland

"“Yeah,” Roome said in agreement from Newfoundland. “And the fact that he recognized the value of enterprise allocation and quota better than anybody.” For his part, Risley didn’t dispute that some of the Hillsdown-funded acquisitions failed to deliver, arguing that’s expected when you’re doing a “shitload of"

"The system was summarized in a comment allegedly made by Newfoundland’s first and long-time premier, Joey Smallwood. At the opening of a new fish plant, Smallwood reportedly said the facility would provide “hundreds of jobs for thousands of Newfoundlanders.” And that thinking persisted into the early 2000s. Said one town manager in 2002: “Everybody knows you can process all the groundfish in Newfoundland with one great, big plant.... But that’s not what it’s about.” Without those seasonal jobs, many communities would die."

"There shall be no wasting of victuals nor time spent in idleness but all industrious uses practiced to set forward the enterprise. JOHN GUvy, first governor of Newfoundland, 1610-15"

"Jones and his family were settled in Vancouver, a city he loved, and Jones enjoyed working at Okanagan Helicopters. His wife, a doctor, had a thriving practice. They owned a home near the water and had no interest in returning to the east coast. “In fact,” Jones says, “if you had told me an hour before I met Craig Dobbin that I would ever move back to Newfoundland, I would have bet my life savings against it.”"

"On the return flight to Newfoundland, Jones assumed the deal was dead before it was born. Rutledge was not prepared to accept empty promises. He had told J ones, in effect, that when the $500,000 was deposited in Rutledge’s account, they would talk. Until then, nothing was going to happen. In St. John’s, Jones broke the news to Dobbin, who pondered the situation for a moment, then shrugged and said, “So pay him the half-million out of our operating line,” meaning the million-dollar credit arrangement Sealand had with rp Bank to cover the firm’s day-to-day expenses. Jones protested they couldn't do that. Tp granted the credit to pay for salaries, rent, fuel and other expenses, not to spend it on acquisitions. The bank would never approve giving half of Sealand’s entire line of credit to Rutledge just to open negotiations. Besides, reducing their access to available cash by 50 per cent would leave Sealand in a difficult position when it came to paying its bills. Dobbin’s response was familiar to Jones by now. “Screw the bankers,” he said. “Let’s do it.”"

"Dobbin’s respect for Stanford became enormous, and he expressed it in various ways. In 2004, while liquidating many of his long-held properties in Newfoundland, Dobbin decided to retain one of his original apartment buildings on LaMarchant Road in St. John’s. Built in 1967 as the Bellevue Terrace Apartments, the building had undergone various changes over the years and was serving as a low-rent residence when Dobbin informed Stanford he wanted the complex converted to a hotel. Dobbin wasn’t interested in making a lot of money from the hotel business. “Basically,” explains Stanford, “he wanted a place to hang out.”"