Top photo: From left to right, Ontario wealthy billionaire Paul Desmarais, President Sarkozi and Jean Charest. That's how the Empire was built Desmarais ... and this is how business man spoiled by all the banana republics of this world has managed to put the people of Quebec by the backyard ... bottom, very rare photo of the Castle of Paul Desmarais, Sagard, the Vaux-le-Vicomte du Saguenay. It took, the French, through 1789 to get rid of monarchical tyranny and abuse they were the perpetrators. When is the release of the Quebec people's minds regime profiteers who know how to titillate pettiness and venality of statesmen to enrich themselves enormously at the expense of people who had the misfortune to accommodate too much?
Planted in the heart of the massive Laurentian, in what would effectively be called the "refuge of Paradise", the "Domaine Laforest" (a euphemism here) stretches over 80 km long, is almost of 22,000 acres of land and married, in a single monolithic block, adjacent regions of Charlevoix and Saguenay. At the heart of this Eden that totally escapes the eyes of regional (and tax in Quebec and Canada), one counts, among other gems, at least 32 of the most beautiful lakes bursting trout "Kingdom", a moose and a quarantine wildlife is both rich and varied. At the bottom word So, to cut short a list of benefits and privileges that would never end princely to be lying here, an imperial hunting ground-undervalued evaluated, we should say, the role of the Regional Municipality of Charlevoix County, at $ 7,746,100. Both say a trifle, for the monarch who reigned already, at the time, with assets of $ 10 billion and who was, to say the least, $ 33 million in annual fees.
If the Sagueneens have already forgotten, I take the time to remind them that it was in November 1974, when Paul Desmarais sent each in the air with the holding of shares in the paper mill Consolidated-Bathurst, Port Alfred, in the beautiful Baie des Ha! Ah, the forest industry sagunéenne started giving up the ghost. At a time when everybody was spinning his little happiness with the sweetest of carelessness, Miss Paula was seen as the god of the stadium, business success and French Canadian. French Canadian born in Ontario, he was revered by Quebecers as the heron of the fable, and he did them well. Here are the facts as I have reported in my book "The annals of the forest industry Saguenay, "published in 2004, pages 270-281.
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EXCERPT:
most seasoned observers, who had to witness this escobarderie large scale, do not hesitate to call the episode "one of the most dramatic the history of corporations in Canada "which nevertheless remains for us a powerful ballet black widows allowing some prominent commensal and a cohort of sycophants to write elegies on engineering business president and CEO of Power Corporation's Paul Desmarais (Miss Paul to the admirers and bonds), and his alter ego as President of Consolidated-Bathurst, William Turner (Bill for short). "Have you lived in the Laurentians few happy days of your life? Is what remains of Atlantis when it was paradise, "wrote Maurice Druon also praising the qualities of the table and the beauty of the area Laforest, lost paradise in the heart of the massive Laurentian, the Emirate of Sagard a fabulous area of 80 square kilometers, which would decompose because of jealousy, the first tenant of Versailles.
The Dance of Death, which moved to the legend the successful businessman to have engraved the epitaph of the Price Company, began in summer 1974 when Tittemore announces its intention to proceed with an ambitious program to modernize plants under its government investments estimated at about 74 M $. Facing as a core problem of liquidity, the Company's senior management reviews all kinds of opportunities, including the merger of a portion of its business with another Canadian company to maintain its share of the market and reassure shareholders who fear an important market devaluation. In media financial, several names of buyers or sellers, are advanced-potentials, but especially that of Abitibi group that holds the attention of observers, and that is the subject of a bid. Desmarais Ontarian will find here the opportunity of his life to demonstrate his abilities and his or her name in the pantheon of Canadian richards so glorified by the author of The Canadian Establishment.
The outcome of this theatrical cabal is making great art with the greatest passions of this world, greed, love of power, vanity, profit. And the reader will certainly great pleasure to follow the thread of events day after day, from November 14 to 21, as captured on the spot by newspapers and recorded in Canadian history by the content of a scholarly investigation filed in August 1976 to the Commission Royal Commission on Corporate Concentration, while the fantastic legend of the Ontarian Desmarais takes off in this entry rave, to gradually take the weight, much weight, as and when we discover the 'Drunken tans, we exchanged the vapors of Dior and Chanel in the braces, we will tell it that great history between courtiers, journalists, politicians, financiers, bouncers potties and poets who took part at any time around the table Sagard.
Before going to the fact, for the sake of alleviating the opaque backdrop of this scene though Molière, first recall the names of major companies involved: Abitibi Paper Price Limited, Consolidated-Bathurst, Domtar, and the Associated Newspapers Group. Remember, then, those of major financial institutions that traded equity portfolios: including Power Corporation, Argus Corporation, Canadian Pacific Pension Fund, Cemp Investments, Standard Life, Royal Bank, Bank of Montreal, Royal Trust, the Caisse de Depot, Montreal and Toronto exchanges. And remember, finally, those messengers and actors who have held the spotlight: Thomas (Tom) Bell, Chairman of the Board of Directors and president of Abitibi, Harry Rose, President and Chief Operating Officer of Abitibi, Charles L. Gundy, a member of the Board of Directors of Abitibi and chairman of the board of the Wood Gundy Ltd., the investment house in Toronto, CR Tittemore, president of the Price Company, Robert E. (Bob) Morrow, a member of the Board of Directors Price of the Company and associated with the Montreal law firm Ogilvy, Cope, Porteous, Hansard, Marler, Montgomery & Renault, Bill Turner, president of the company Consolidated-Bathurst, Arthur Pattillo, president of the Ontario Securities Commission. And none other than Paul Desmarais, president and CEO of Power Corporation of Canada, the endearing Mr. Jordan, the Gentleman of Sudbury ...
Here are the facts as I believe them worthy of being reported:
Thursday, November 14
At the opening of awards Montreal and Toronto, Tom Bell, Chairman of the Board and President Abitibi Paper Company, published his historic bid (OPA) and announced its intention to acquire 49% of the shares of the Company Price (or 4.83 million shares, totaling $ 86.9 million), priced at $ 18 action, while the market value of only $ 12. This unexpected offer, which provides holders easy and immediate profit of $ 6 per unit, is made on behalf of a subsidiary of Abitibi, through Wood Gundy Limited. It expires at 9: 45 pm EST, Tuesday, November 19. Hooked like fish, the shareholders take over the phone and notify their brokers sell securities without further delay.
informed of the takeover surprise when he attends a conference on commercial li ¬ ¬ ¬ cia tion, The Pine Forest Val-David (QC), Tittemore, went from hunter to hunted, issued a statement in disaster which he stated that the Price Company has received no notice and he had, he, the president position, no knowledge of that offer before its announcement, which does not conform to established rules, and what grants it, he argues, suspended for 48 hours under thereon. Without further ado, then its board convenes Tittemore Board at an extraordinary meeting to study the issue and asked shareholders not do anything precipitate. In his strong, he hopes an offer of Domtar, the company's newsprint Argus Corporation, which already owns 7% of shares Price, but it will not come.
Friday, November 15
In Toronto in the early hours of the morning, the chairman of the Ontario Securities Commission, Arthur Pattillo, convened the first officials to his office for 9:30. Among them, John A. Tory, director and chief legal officer of Abitibi, and JR Kimber, president of the Toronto Stock Exchange. In the barrage of discussion, Pattillo does not beat around the bush and informs both men that he has the power to suspend the negotiations if it thinks fit. He asked for an extension of 48 hours of the takeover, but finally accepted a compromise of 24 hours, which returns the conclusion of the transaction at the opening exchanges, to 9:45, Wednesday, November 20. By the new deadline, "said Patillo willing to reduce the panic that has gripped the small shareholders of Price and give a chance for reflection.
Asked to comment the meantime, in a terse statement, which shows how the media are far from suspecting that something important is preparing on the trading floor of Montreal and Toronto-commentator for the daily La Presse, Lionel Desjardins, announced that two high-caliber players (Argus Corporation and an anonymous believed Domtar be) are preparing to file a cons-proposal by Monday morning, and the Associated Newspaper Group, of London, the main ¬ largest shareholder of Price, formally objected on the grounds that the original offer "does not reflect the actual or potential value of the Price. "
Saturday, November 16
Scholarships are closed. Dating alcoves: it has languished in despair, attempts scenarios and it is estimated the possible, proposed alliances through their lawyers as it does in such cases in these environments, it is rubbing his hands! Since yesterday, Bud McDougald, president of Argus Corp., is trying to establish a legal support for an exchange offer of shares at par with cash, which would have the advantage of bringing Price to protect from flood. But time desperately. The chances of getting there before the expiry of the rest are so thin that McDougald dropped the towel in the morning. No irritation Newspapers in Quebec though. Outside shareholders and some smart minds, few people understood the magnitude of the tidal wave is coming. Press talking about a "major coup", but the desk officer did not feel justified in putting the event on its front. Greed is the master at all, prevails over prudence, reason, the most basic human solidarity. In this church of Epicurus, he is unfaithful to the bankrupts.
Desmarais, who spent last week in Paris and landed in penalty aircraft, has been briefed on the takeover of Abitibi on the morning of November 16 by his executive assistant, John Ray. Nothing else transpired in his weekend, or its meetings elsewhere, and his telephone conversations. He will fly tomorrow night to Winnipeg to attend a meeting of directors of Investors Group, a company which then manages the largest group of mutual funds in Canada, which plays the rest with both hands as much in insurance life in mutual funds, which controls Great-West Life, the Life Insurance Company and Montreal Trust. In the world of high finance Canadian it says that it is a paradise for this kind of insider trading, this can only be in the garden of the Group!
Sunday, November 17
Arrive in Montreal in disaster, three representatives from Associated Newspaper Group, a holding company which controls London Price with 17% of shares. This is Vere Harmsworth, chairman and CEO; Michael Shields, Executive Director, and Peter J. Saunders, secretary and administrator. Although the company mainly deals to publish the Daily Mail and the Evening News, it is also in oil, that of the sea Northern English which blackens several hands in a field where she shared interests (18.9%) with the Price Company. Since 1972, this triumvirate-Harmsworth London-Shields-Saunders, who represents the Association Newspaper Group ¬ ted in the direction of Price and who is mandated to decide the best interests of their society. Together with Tittemore and Morrow, the three Londoners decide to reject the takeover of Abitibi and go in search of a new bidder.
Monday, November 18
Tittemore, Harmsworth and others boarded the jet with the Price Company and fly towards Toronto, for a meeting with Thomas Bell, president of Abitibi. The hunter meets his prey! The group will Harmsworth, who said to face problems of exchange and taxation in the UK, admits it impossible to determine whether the offer of $ 18 is reasonable, without first knowing if the Bank of England considers its investment in the Company Price as a direct investment or portfolio investment; subtleties of insiders who make all the difference it seems between a substantial gain, a simple gain and loss. Discussions will
so much that during the day the Associated Newspaper Group offers verbally give one million shares in Abitibi Price and accept a seat on its board of directors. The deal was concluded by a handshake, and Bell said in a statement read to the devil the success of the offer, including taking control. But the case changed his tone in the evening. On the flight back to Montreal with his people, Harmsworth learns that the Bank of England considers the investment in the Price as a direct investment, not a portfolio investment, which significantly reduces the value of the bid submitted by Abitibi . Curtain falls therefore Harmsworth, and the debut of Ontarians.
Tuesday, November 19
Paul Desmarais and Bill Turner meet to discuss the case, form a working group to evaluate the opportunity to file a cons-offer, and if so, how it must be done , how and what type of financing. Attend this important meeting, representatives of Power Corporation, Consolidated-Bathurst, Ogilvy (Counsel of CB), and CJ Hodgson (stockbroker who will eventually have the task to act on behalf of the Consolidated-Bathurst) .
At 10 am, Desmarais phone Bill Morrow has to negotiate an exchange of the 17% of shares held by Price Associated Newspaper Group, together with a private offering to institutional shareholders, which would gain control, and which would have the advantage of appease Quebec nationalists who would rejoice at seeing the back seat of Price Decision in Quebec. But the maneuver failed after being heralded as a resounding victory in newspapers (including the time of going to press at noon), simply because the rule which limits such an offer to 14 institutional shareholders, making it impossible any takeover.
At noon, Desmarais took the matter in hand, gives a new phone call with Morrow for the invite to join a new table. Not at all surprised by this call, Morrow arrives immediately with Tittemore to review the events unfold and resume talks. It is 14 hours. At 18 hours, Harmsworth, Shields and Saunders join them. Fever escalates between negotiators and seized the shareholders, large and small. Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean is holding its breath. Consultation between the two men lasted two hours. It leads to a tentative agreement that requires more than being readied for submission of a new takeover bid. This requires the ability to maneuver with Paul Desmarais banks, the propensity to negotiate other, and the vivacity of Bill Turner, without whom, give to Caesar what is Caesar's, the genius of one would su occur with equal brilliance.
The blitz ends at 3:30 am in the tavern in Montreal where we end the night like philistines to clap hands and bite into a sandwich made on the arms of the vanquished, a sandwich to $ 80 million if it is to serve as a fulcrum to the legend emerging Desmarais Ontarian. Which brings us to this famous press release where Turner announced that his company, Consolidated-Bathurst, was finally secured by way of exchange for two, 17% of shares held by Price Associated Newspaper group (ie 1,860,770 shares Price, for 930,385 shares CB), and he asked his broker to buy at the opening of the purse (which makes us so at Wednesday, November 20, at 9 hours), 4 million shares Price (40% approximately, for a total of $ 80 million) to $ 20 each (or $ 2 more Abitibi).
If the update death of the Price Company and concludes, therefore, the deal will benefit as they should be at one and the other companies ... Desmarais and will actually able to fill their pockets: one, Consolidated-Bathurst will own 57% or 58% of shares Price and become the largest producer of newsprint in the continent; deuzio, Associated Newspaper Group, which has ensured a priority supply of newsprint, will own 13% of additional shares in Consolidated-Bathurst, tertiary, Ontarian has preserved its implementation or even tenfold since its strength still holds 38% stake in Consolidated-Bathurst and that Customer focused the London press (hence the right side of the genius attributed to him in this society who do not trivial to left).
Wednesday, November 20
This dramatic turnaround is not well explained by cons in some regional observers, who at the last minute, finally realized that it is also, somewhere, the future of the forest industry in the Saguenay -Lac-Saint-Jean is at stake in this highly dramatic fine. Even more inexplicable, Berberi comments in The Daily, a spokesman for Power Corporation which is the controlling shareholder Majority of the Consolidated-Bathurst (Maurice Sauvé, Vice-Chairman of CB, not the name), said a few days ago, "that company-owned diversified not only stroked ambition comparable to Abitibi.
But no time for emotional (had she been?). The games are made. Make it or break it ... ! As expected, at 9 am, the Bathurst-Consildated announced its offer to $ 20 on the trading floor in Montreal and Toronto not suspend any of the Share Trading Price. Then begin talks representatives of stock exchanges, Wood Gundy Ltd., and J. Hodgson Inc.. for the enactment of rules based on proposals coming-cons, who finally agreed to give Abitibi until tomorrow afternoon, Thursday, November 21 to 14 hours to submit a second offer.
And is the rumor! The rumor that mixes everyone and is not contradicted by the main stakeholders, the rumor that irritates the Parti Québécois singers on their way to power, the noise that shakes the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean, Petit Ashuapmushuan Saguenay, the first capital of the Price House ; The rumor that allows those who launch and the press that gives life to fool everyone under the pretext of being in business to do in high finance that gives all the rights and particularly those that honor can not argue! Rumor that if Abitibi adds to report the victory, the registered office of Price move from Quebec to Toronto rumor amplified by Desmarais stated that the bid of Consolidated aims to maintain the headquarters of Price in Quebec rumor claiming that Abitibi Price if purchased, Abitibi Consolidated will buy, and which grows to ask Ottawa to intervene " because such a transaction would give control of Power Corporation "too large" on the pulp and paper industry in Canada. "
Thursday, November 21
At 1:45 p.m., fifteen minutes before the expiry of the Offer for Abitibi, while the snow storm of the century (another!) Shakes southern Quebec, Abitibi adds a offer $ 25 per share for a controlling 51%. Desmarais up to 16 hours to respond. Chestnuts are taken! On the field, Ontario's decision to cede backhand its 1.8 million shares Price. Why harp and jeopardizing the financial security of the Consolidated-Bathurst offering more? The games were $ 18 per share when the game began Nov. 14 and they finish at $ 25 per share. According to the estimator fellows who had to evaluate this case, two and a half days of work have earned him a gain of $ 24.6 million in cash (thanks to the single issue of shares on the Canadian market the decline of 1974); gains plus the 879,000 shares then worth ~ $ 22 million and a major market supply of newsprint to the Associated Newspaper Group.
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Those are the facts, at this juncture in our history! The facts before the reader, to enable it to assess the quality of players who took part in this game of insiders and to attempt to measure the suffering of entire populations who were the dupes and victims. Those are the facts as excited at the tangle of oblivion and temporal prism. The simple facts, pure, hard and raw. The facts reported to the sovereign interests of understanding, to do justice to the historical truth, evidence, investigate and correct if possible. Accustomed to negotiate with a company like family (the Price Company) Sagueneens Jeannois and will now get used to dealing with a multinational rootless, insensitive to their pain, motivated solely by profit-seeking beyond their control, and run by corporate managers less concerned about regional needs and reluctant to respect the social gains recovered trouble and misery in a history that has lasted 136 years-from 1838 to 1974 - between the people and the Saguenay House Price.
Asking the simple question: Thirty years after the fact, in this new millennium, what else does it for us and for our later plants Jonquière Kénogami, Alma, Port Alfred? What remains about those scraps of plants and the forest bled white, abandoned by speculators, raiders of the people, the highway robbers? Where is the regional population in its quest for happiness? Three questions that need to challenge the conscience. Every conscience! For me, the real result, since the one doing the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean is forced to produce more dividends to foreign profiteers with more wood and more sweat steeped in liquor factories obsolete, m ' indicate that these gains are made on the backs of its people and the pursuit of happiness that is unique to any company seeking a destiny, society is so primitive it did not count at all in the minds of those who have exchanged our production and our natural resources to satisfy it's ego, this one's greed, another to compensate for the gap in satisfaction of a fantasy.
One can observe the history that we shall without subjecting it to turn to a clean look. It is characteristic of free spirits. Let us not mince words: high finance, the vice of men in that mates the vacuum state. Called to address the perverse consequences of the merger of Abitibi-Price and the epidemic of closures which will hit after hit the pulp and paper mills in Quebec, the Ministry of Lands and Forests concluded three years later-in terms a committee formed in 1977 - the takeover of the group Abitibi helped "weaken competition in the industry" and that it has succeeded, by implication, to severely limit the investment ¬ ments in this area activities. But it is not enough to observe the rule of mischief ; Still would have had to correct it. And correct for the trouble! For far to stop, our decline continues.
Facts are stubborn witnesses who are within the absolute. In the years that followed the formation of the holding company Abitibi-Price, Price and former factories sagamienne forest industry will be subject only to the laws of economic liberalism and the international market, and will bear the brunt of the venality of men. These plants, which live on borrowed time, become so, we will inevitably come back in our third and final part which opens the year 1975, major hostage a true revolution ¬ tion socioeconomic punctuated new takeovers, arrivals of new competitors, sales and closures that will result in thousands of layoffs that will join, forever, the mass of more imposing idle, on welfare and left behind a Corporation disorderly, disoriented and stripped of all his property in the name of principles that are not hers and cogs that escape him entirely.
Russel Bouchard
For Dr. akakia
