Argus Corporation

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Argus Corporation (TSX: AR), based in Toronto, Ontario, is an investment and holding company founded in 1945 by its President E. P. Taylor with minority partners Colonel W. Eric Phillips and Wallace McCutcheon and other investors.

Argus was once Canada's most powerful conglomerate; by the 1970s it controlled Canadian Breweries, Dominion Stores, Hollinger Mines, Crown Trust, Domtar, Standard Broadcasting and Massey-Ferguson, as well as having control or significant shareholdings in other Canadian companies such as Dominion Malting Co., Orange Crush Ltd. and British Columbia Forest Products Limited.

By 1969, E.P. Taylor was satisfied to allow the very capable Bud McDougald to run operations. The company became so powerful that it was a focal point of the 1975 Royal Commission on Corporate Concentration.

Following the death of Bud McDougald, in 1978 his widow sold her shares to Conrad Black which gave him effective voting control. Black and his associates sold off most of the assets. In 2005 Argus controls only Black's Toronto-based holding company Hollinger Inc. Argus itself is controlled by Ravelston Corporation Limited -- itself a holding company controlled until 2005 by Black and his long-time associate David Radler.