Frederick Charles Mannix

Frederick Charles Mannix

Frederick Charles Mannix, businessman (b at Edmonton 21 Oct 1913; d at Calgary 29 July 1995). As a young man he worked in the construction camps of his father's company, Fred Mannix Co. The elder Mannix sold control of the company to a US-based firm in the 1940s, but Frederick Charles regained control after his father's death in 1951 and built it into an international giant with diverse interests in oil, coal, pipelines, earth moving and industrial plants.

By 1983 Mannix owned or controlled a network of 132 companies, including Loram International, Techman Engineering, Pembina Resources and Manalta Coal (the largest coal producer in Canada), and commanded corporate assets estimated at $1 billion. He was also director of the Royal Bank and Stelco.

An intensely private man, Mannix was involved in a widely publicized court battle with the Alberta government over the expropriation of his ranch, south of Calgary, for a park. In 1985 in the face of the slump in megaproject and pipeline construction contracts, Loram International Ltd was put on hold and its $12 million worth of heavy equipment sold. Mannix was a laureate of the first Canadian Business Hall of Fame and an Officer of the Order of Canada.