Media Profiles

Conrad Moffat Black

Paul Attallah
October 15 2005

Conrad Moffat Black (Lord Black of Crossharbour) is a Canadian-born press baron in the mold of Max Aitken (Lord Beaverbrook) and Roy Thomson (Lord Thomson of Fleet). At the peak of his career in the late 1990s, Black owned more than 400 newspapers in North America, including 60% of the dailies in Canada accounting for 37% of total circulation, and most notably the National Post, as well as other important newspapers in Britain and Israel. He is a convert to Catholicism and is married to Barbara Amiel, a newspaper columnist. He has two children, James and Alana, from a previous marriage. A TV movie based on his life, Shades of Black, is in production.

Black was born in Montreal in 1944 but grew up in a wealthy Toronto family. His father, George Montegu Black, Jr., was the president of Canadian Breweries. Black attended Upper Canada College but was expelled for selling stolen examinations. He attended Carleton University, Laval University and McGill University from which he obtained an MA in history. He is the author of two important biographies, Duplessis (1977) and Franklin Delano Roosevelt (2004), and of an autobiography, A Life in Progress (1993).

In 1966, Black began writing editorials for the Eastern Townships Advertiser in Quebec. In 1969, with associates David Radler and Peter White, he purchased the Sherbrooke Daily Record. Through his holding company, Sterling Newspapers Ltd., he acquired several other small newspapers.

In 1978, he acquired controlling shares in Argus Corporation whose holdings at the time included Dominion Stores, Massey-Ferguson, Hollinger Mines and Norcen Energy. He used this to launch Hollinger Inc., a publicly-traded Canadian company, through which he would control other assets. Hollinger Inc. acquired the newspapers formerly controlled by Sterling Newspapers and eventually acquired a control interest in Southam newspapers. His financial network also includes Ravelston, which holds his personal financial interests as well as those of some close associates, and Hollinger International, a publicly-traded US company. Ravelston controls 78% of Hollinger Inc. and 73% of Hollinger International. Hollinger Inc. controls 30% of Hollinger International. Hollinger International is the entity through which now holds most of Black’s newspapers.

In 1985, Black entered the British newspaper world by acquiring the British Telegraph Group (The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph). By the early 1990s, in addition to his extensive Canadian holdings, Black also owned The Chicago Sun-Times, The Jerusalem Post, and The Spectator. A full list of Hollinger holdings is available at http://www.ketupa.net/black1.htm.

In 1998, Black launched The National Post, a well-written, rightwing daily which sparked a newspaper war with the dominant Globe and Mail and which played an important role in the “Unite the Right” campaign which sought to merge the Progressive Conservative and Reform parties in order to form a rightwing coalition that could defeat the governing Liberal Party. The newspaper was eventually won by the Globe and Mail.

By 2000, his empire was beginning to show signs of decline and turmoil. The National Post never achieved profitability and Black began to sell important assets. In 2000, he sold 14 major Canadian dailies and 126 smaller newspapers, as well as 50% of the National Post, to CanWest Global.

In 2001, Black became engaged in a highly publicized dispute with Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chrétien with whom Black had long been unfriendly. The dispute concerned whether or not Black could accept the title of Lord Black of Crossharbour for which he had been nominated by British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
The Canadian government held the view that Black could not accept such a title as a result of the Nickles Resolution of 1919 which expressly instructed the Monarch to refrain from granting such titles to Canadian citizens. Ultimately, Black renounced his Canadian citizenship (he had characterized Canadians as “whining, political conformist welfare addicts”) and became Baron Black of Crossharbour. However, Black is also a member of the Queen’s Privy Council of Canada and enjoys the use of a special Canadian passport.

Having renounced his citizenship, Black also disposed of his other Canadian newspapers. He sold the remaining 50% of The National Post to CanWest Global and sold 16 daily and 13 weekly newspapers to Osprey Media Group for $220 million.

By 2000, questions had also begun to emerge about management fees paid to Ravelston by various Hollinger assets and about an apparent disregard for shareholder value. In 2001 and 2002, Hollinger lost US$335 and US$238 million respectively. In November 2003, Black resigned as CEO of Hollinger but stayed on as Chairman of the Board. In January 2004, he was forced to resign as Chairman.

Almost immediately, the Barclay brothers of Britain purchased all of Ravelston’s stake in Hollinger Inc. and in Hollinger International for US$460 million. This was less than what many thought they were worth especially if the assets were sold individually. The Hollinger board launched a legal action to prevent the sale and to open the assets to competitive bidding through the Lazard investment bank. Ultimately, Lazard sold the assets to the Barclay brothers for US$1.17 billion.

Amid ongoing litigation, the board of Hollinger International commissioned Richard Breeden to write a report for the US Securities and Exchanges Commission. Breeden characterized Black’s management as a “corporate kleptocracy” and noted that “[t] he aggregate cash taken by Hollinger's former chief executive officer, Conrad M Black and its former chief operating officer, F David Radler and their associates, represented 95.2 per cent of Hollinger's entire adjusted net income during 1997-2003.” (Johnston, 2004). Black denied the allegations and counter-sued.

In September 2005, Black’s right hand man, David Radler, was charged with fraud for siphoning US$32 million from Hollinger International. As the result of a plea bargain, Radler agreed to spend 29 months in jail and to pay a fine of US$250 000.

Black has never been charged with any wrongdoing.

His rise to prominence as an international press baron was assisted by Canadian media ownership laws. While entrepreneurs such as Black are free to purchase newspapers in many other countries, non-Canadians are not free to purchase newspapers in Canada. Indeed, Canadian law requires that Canadian newspapers be predominantly owned by Canadian citizens. This is why Black disposed of so many Canadian assets after renouncing his citizenship.

Nonetheless, once a Canadian media empire such as Black’s is created, it is virtually immune from foreign take-over. Furthermore, there are very few Canadians with the financial ability to seize control of such an empire. This accounts for the exceptionally high degree of media concentration in Canada as a very small group of players ends up owning all media properties for the simple reason that no other Canadian players can match their financial power and no foreign players are allowed to enter the game. It also accounts for the tradition of Canadian press barons of which Black is the latest incarnation. They can use their secure Canadian base as a cash generator to fuel acquisitions around the world.

Sources:

Biography.ms. Conrad Black. Available at: http://conrad-black.biography.ms/

CBC News Online. 2005. Conrad Black: Timeline. May 26. Available at: http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/black_conrad/timeline.html

Philip Johnston. 2004. “Black 'lined pockets with 95pc of firm's profit” in The Daily Telegraph, 1 September. Available at: http://news.telegraph.co.uk/core/Content/displayPrintable.jhtml?
xml=/news/2004/09/01/wholl01.xml&site=5

Tim Jones. 1998. “That Old Black Magic” in Columbia Journalism Review, March/ April. Available at: http://archives.cjr.org/year/98/2/black.asp.