LETTERS Black business
Sir: John Saul's article in the Spectator of 23 November (The Black magic'), which purported to be about me, contains several assertions that were so dishonest and mali- cious that they should not be allowed to pass without comment. An absolute major- ity of the sentences in the piece were false and a detailed refutation would require a more extensive exposé than is deserved by so crude and transparent a smear. The reference to the performance of the stock prices of companies with which I have been associated failed to take into account special cash and specie dividends. When those dividends are factored into the market performance of the companies in question, our investors have enjoyed, in the time that I have exercised my present functions, capital gains, realised or other- wise, of from 50 to 100 per cent. It is a performance entirely competitive with that of comparable companies. I deal personal- ly with all shareholder inquiries and am unaware of any minority shareholder dis- content, and cannot imagine the basis for such discontent. Whatever the corporate operetta that Mr Saul professes to have seen on television, it was not the live transference of control of Argus Corpora- tion.
I was chairman of Massey-Ferguson for 22 months, from 1978 to 1980, in the Course of which the company made a modest profit. I took up that position at the request of lending institutions in order to bring in new operating management and help to transform the company into an entity deserving of support from govern- ments and banks. Those objectives were achieved and I am unaware of any poten- tial controversy about my role. I have not, until recently, been an officer of Dominion Stores, but had proclaimed for some years my scepticism about low- margin, labour- and capital-intensive in- dustries and the future of the unionised, retail food supermarket in particular. No- thing that has occurred, either before or after that company's sale of most of its traditional outlets, has had any other effect than to confirm the correctness of that judgment. Dominion Stores continues to be a food wholesaler and manufacturer, with every expectation of greater and more secure profitability than it ever enjoyed before. The disposition on an advan- tageous basis of fundamentally unprofit- able assets is generally regarded as a positive development, and the relevant share price has risen by more than 50 per cent from the be at which, according to Mr Saul, 'the shares of Dominion plunged'. How I managed to make more than $100 million (almost the only state- ment in Mr Saul's article that is true) from such a debacle is left to the beleaguered imagination of the readers.
I am not interested in or responsible for the fatuities of journalists, in Canada or elsewhere, but am unaware of having been `attacked. . . violently' by the press. Given his own techniques and proclivities, it is understandable that Mr Saul would con- fuse the neurotic and unrequited gossip of a notorious society groupie, from which he obviously cribbed his outburst, with gener- al informed opinion.
I have never had any difficulty with the Ontario Securities Commission or any other regulatory authority and, in the case to which Mr Saul refers, the Commission- ers unanimously stated that our company and I had complied precisely with the law and had handled a difficult compliance situation exactly correctly.
Mr Saul did not, and could not, sub- stantiate his allegation that there 'was even public talk of some members of the finan- cial community doubting' my 'intentions so much that they didn't want to do business with him.' Every word, and every letter of every word of that statement are false.
In his perfervid search for a 'non-failure' in my commercial career, Mr Saul omits any reference to Norcen, which he else- where mistakenly refers to as our 'sole remaining operating company'. Norcen's profits have risen by 140 per cent since I became its chairman in 1981, and that company produces an annual cash flow greater than Massey-Ferguson and Domin- ion Stores ever produced together in any three years. That, essentially, is what I am in business for.
The suggestion that my associates retired from their partnership with me on any basis other than complete amicability and great profit to themselves is a shameful untruth. The psychological and ideological liberties that the author inflicted upon his readers are wildly inaccurate and gra- tuitous.
For the second time in almost four months (Letters, 10 August), I am compel- led to regret that the Spectator would demean itself by recourse to scurrilous mudslinging.
Mr Saul is a familiar and somewhat pitiful figure, who has hovered and fes- tered for some years on the fringes of Canadian government — and fiction- writing. Those who would retain his ser- vices should confine him to subjects better suited than this one was to his sniggering, puerile, defamatory and cruelly limited talents.
Conrad M. Black
Argus Corporation Ltd, 10 Toronto Street, Toronto, Canada
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