Browse "Industry"

When the larger-than-life Jack McClelland ran the venerable Canadian publishing house co-founded by his father, McClelland & Stewart was no stranger to headlines.

In the fall of 2000, as part of the back-and-forth dealing to sell some community newspapers, a Hollinger International executive named Mark Kipnis told the buyers he wanted a change in the purchase agreement.

Conrad BLACK's grip on one of the world's greatest media empires was severely weakened last week by a Delaware court judge who described the Canadian-born, now British lord as an untrustworthy bully and his actions as "cunning and calculated.

No one expected Napoleon to retreat from the steppes of Russia, or Conrad Black to dispossess himself of the newspapers he has spent most of a lifetime acquiring.

The plot is like something out of a Mordecai Richler novel. Sharp-eyed, compulsive-smoking Jewish guy from, of all places, small-town Manitoba goes nose to nose with equally sharp-eyed, private-school-educated WASP from Toronto for the big enchilada.

On the newsprint wrapper in which the retooled Citizen arrived at the doorsteps of its 140,000 subscribers, Neil Reynolds, the brooding editorial wizard whom Black handpicked to direct the metamorphosis, laid out that agenda.

Her project name was Orient Express. Later, her corporate creator, Montreal's Bombardier Inc., settled on the Global Express instead.

In the aviation world, they still talk in hushed tones about the telephone call - the one in which BOMBARDIER Inc. coolly walked away from a billion-dollar sale. It happened in June, when all of the industry’s major players were gathered at the Paris Air Show.

The earliest booksellers in Canada were Jean Seto and Joseph Bargeas, who in the 1840s and 1850s operated out of Montréal, importing books "for the gentry, the merchants, and the garrison: that is, a small middle and upper-middle-class readership.

It was a cool night in Jakarta and the Shangri-La hotel was all aglitter. Valentine’s Day, 1997. Young couples swayed through the lobby, the ladies carrying helium heart-shaped balloons and single roses. A piano player sat at a full-sized grand, playing Johnny Mathis tunes.

IS MICHAEL de GUZMAN DEAD OR ALIVE? Eight years after the Bre-X Minerals fraud was uncovered, the fate of its central figure still haunts us. Last month, it seemed, he briefly stepped out from the shadows. And just like that, he was gone again.

John Felderhof is pacing like a panther. Boxed in a place he does not want to be. Hounded by people he does not like. He is grey-pale, his skin approximating the color of the smoke that rises from his Marlboro cigarette. Outside, the Jakarta air hangs at 30°C. The scenery is chaotic, Kodachromatic.

In its early development period, the industry consisted of small, independent breweries scattered throughout the country.

American promoter Malcolm Bricklin wanted to build his own US-designed sports car, and, lured by loan guarantees of $2 880 000 plus $500 000 for 51% of the stock, he set up shop in Saint John and Minto, NB, where the fibreglass bodies were made.

Former film-maker Edgar Bronfman Jr. showed last week that he still has a flair for the dramatic. Investors and analysts were kept on the edge of their seats as the 39-year-old chief executive of Seagram Co. Ltd.

Montreal's Bronfman family is no stranger to controversy. After arriving in Canada from Russia in the 1890s, they made a fortune outrunning federal tax collectors and selling whisky to American mobsters. The next generation made headlines tussling over control of the family firm, Seagram Co. Ltd.

One of the honoured guests at the celebrations for the new provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan in 1905 was the "railway king of Canada," Sir William Mackenzie.

The role of business elites has never been as straightforward in Canadian society as it has in countries with longer histories and more clearly defined class systems.

CHUM Limited, controlled by Allan Waters, and headquartered in Toronto, is one of Canada's largest radio and television broadcasting holding companies.

This time, Paul Martin kept his cool. Last January, the Bank of Montreal and Royal Bank announced plans to merge and create one superbank, with assets of $453 billion.