MINING: The New Uranium King

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Cash Before the Crash. Hirshhorn, who got his start as a Wall Street market tipster and trader, got out of the market with $4,000,000 just before the 1929 crash. For more than 20 years he has commuted between Manhattan and Toronto, has set up a string of more than two dozen Canadian mining and oil companies. In 1950 New York State's Attorney General Goldstein warned investors against buying shares in American-Canadian Uranium Co., which was backed by Pax Athabasca Uranium Mines. Ltd., a Hirshhorn interest (TIME, Dec. 4, 1950), because the promoters were making too much.

Hirshhorn's new $207 million deal with the Canadian government amounts to a cost-plus contract. Unlike most other producing uranium properties in Canada, which are so remote that supplies must be flown in at tremendous cost, the Algom property has access to good transportation. Miners guess it will cost Hirshhorn less than $10 a ton to get the Algom ore out, and the government is reported to be paying between $18 and $20 a ton for it. Estimated profit to Algom under the contract: $100 million. And that, says Hirshhorn, is only the beginning: "We're thinking in terms of 50 or 60 years. Our indicated reserves are worth between $2 billion and $3 billion. I'm just sittin' on eggs, waitin' for them to hatch."