Peter Munk is Canada’s King Midas. Chairman and CEO of American Barrick Resources Corporation and The Horsham Corporation, the latter a wallet of assets bought with gold profits, he collects money and powerful friends yet regrets that investors do not value his businesses as much as he thinks they should.

Donald Rumball, ex-Financial Post staffer, examines Munk as man and tycoon and swoons before his success. Reciting Munk’s much-told tale of arriving in Canada as a penniless but charming Hungarian émigré, he provides a lucid, detailed account of how big deals earned him a life among the glitterati. Rumball takes Munk at his word as a guy who just wants to give shareholders the best possible return and be loved for doing his duty. The result is inspirational, yet what drives Munk is not really explored.

Important issues covered include the catastrophic failure of Claritone, a Nova Scotia electronics firm that, under the excessively fast expansion plans of Munk and his associates, turned stereos into a flood of red ink before being put out of its misery in 1971. Accused of insider trading in the debacle, Munk settled out of court for a small sum. It was a huge flop, but, plucky guy that he is, Munk went on to bigger things, like building American Barrick, formerly Barrick Resources, into a huge gold producer, and creating an advisory board with such luminaries as Power Corp.’s Paul Desmarais, Bundesbank ex-head Karl Otto Pohl, ex-U.S. House of Representatives majority leader Howard Baker and ex-U.S. President George Bush, who serves as honorary advisor to the powerless honorary board. Ex-prime minister Brian Mulroney schleps around the world for Munk, which helps him keep out of sight in Canada.

This tale of ambition realized as wealth makes a good yarn that would be better biography if it were actually critical.