The Financial Post reports in its Thursday edition that Rick Clark and company in September, 2010, sold Red Back Mining Inc. to Kinross Gold Corp. for the staggering sum of $7.1-billion (U.S.). The Post's Peter Koven writes this week, Mr. Clark's entire group resurfaced to take control of Atacama Minerals, a small iodine producer in Chile. He hopes to leverage the cash flow from that asset to do what he really wants: Build another big player in the West African gold sector, just like Red Back. "We created a lot of the interest in West Africa and we wanted to capitalize on that," he told the Post. After the Red Back deal closed, Mr. Clark mulled a private transaction that would get them back into the gold game. Then the markets underwent a correction, and they realized they had more flexibility in a public deal. Atacama was under their noses the entire time. Atacama has been part of the Lundin Group for years. In recent months, it started receiving takeover proposals. That caused Mr. Clark to study it more closely. Iodine is an industrial mineral with a wide array of uses. As with other commodities, prices are strong -- about $45 (U.S.) a kilogram, Mr. Clark said, up from $12 (U.S.) a decade ago.