Desmarais

"When Levesque allowed the tccf takeover, he wanted to keep a few of its assets as components of his future plans. The most efficient way to do so, without disrupting business or affecting asset values, was to sell all of tccf to Desmarais, the willing buyer who would willingly sell him back what he wanted to keep. Levesque used F-i-c Fund, an old subsidiary detached from tccf, as the vehicle for the repurchase. Wamock-Hersey was Thomson’s vehicle to keep the companies he wanted, but first, the Power-TCCF merger had to be completed and Desmarais had to get a firm grip on Power, so that he could start shuffling the deck."

"At the end of April, Investors issued 3,000,000 voting common shares to the parties that provided $36 million of the financing for the Great-West share purchases: Power Corp., Canadian Pacific Investments, James Richardson & Sons, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, the Royal Bank of Canada and Peter D. Curry (one of Power’s senior executives and a key Desmarais advisor). Then, in early May, Investors offered 1,600,000 cumulative redeemable convertible preferred shares at $25 each to raise the remainder of the financing costs. By the end of the transaction, Investors owned 50.1 percent of Great-West Life bought for $70.8 million (including costs). In turn, Investors issued stock worth $76 million to finance the acquisition and its costs. Also, 10 percent of Investors had been acquired by Great-West, one of the conditions of acceptance championed by Kil- gour, so that Great-West wouldn’t appear simply to have been ab¬ sorbed by Investors. And Desmarais, through Gelco’s control of Power, which had 30.1 percent of Investors, was in an influential position to guide Great-West Life in new, profitable directions."

"When David Kilgour resigned at the end of 1970, he was replaced by James Bums, who had been Great-West’s u.s. director of Mar¬ keting. A man who enjoyed Desmarais’s support and confidence, Bums orchestrated one of Desmarais’s prime intentions for Great- West — penetration and expansion into the huge, lucrative u.s. mar¬ ket. Desmarais’s other intention, amalgamation of Great-West Life and Imperial Life, never occurred as it was blocked by the federal insurance regulatory agency. It may seem that acquiring and integrating Great-West into Power would be enough to occupy one man’s attention and satisfy his am¬ bitions, especially considering that this was all occurring during the fundamental restructuring of Power. Such is not the case. Desmarais had Jean Parisien, trusty chief of staff, to depend upon to deal with the details of corporate architecture. Parisien, in turn, had inherited the staff of Power and had conducted his shuffling, bringing in some people from his support staff at Trans-Canada, moving out some of the Power staff that didn’t fit in to the new regime, and generally"

"The strangely named Inspiration Ltd., a Power engineering and construction subsidiary formed in 1962 by the merger of a number of con¬ struction companies in Power’s portfolio, was allowed to declare bank¬ ruptcy in 1970. The company had been floundering for years, and recovery was hampered by management contracts that prevented Power from going in and performing a characteristic Desmarais turnaround."

"on the national, continental and global fronts. Desmarais himself had also participated in general market investments through a maze of personal and family-held investment and holding companies so inter¬ twined that even their names seem to merge: Prime, Gabriel, Gelco, Trans-Canada Corporation Fund, Sanpalo, Pansolo, Nordex, Probec, Abonnec, Primgab, Beldo, Polprim, Louidem, Paquerais, Adremed, Sofiamar — all were vehicles to ensure that the portion of wealth accruing to the Desmarais family interest in Power and its holdings, along with other, private investments, moved upward as dividends, at the minimum rate of personal tax payable by individual family members, for management, reinvestment and other dispositions."

"British American Oil Co.’s contribution to the deal illustrates a fascinating twist to company policy that bears the Desmarais stamp of originality. It was customary in the oil and gas industry in the early 1950s to provide low-cost loans to gasoline consumers to help them set up their physical plant. However, the typical consumer envisioned in the policy was the owner or operator of a gasoline and service station that bought the company’s products for resale to the general public. The loan to Desmarais followed the spirit, but not the letter, of the policy."

"The Arnaults, Bollorés, Bouygues, Lagardères, Dassaults, Pinaults, the Agnellis in Italy, Albert Frère in Belgium, or the Desmarais in Canada..."