John Tory, left, then the chief of the Ontario Conservatives, and Edward Rogers arrive for the funeral of Ted Rogers at St. James Cathedral in Toronto in December 2008. The Rogers household feud within the years following Ted Rogers' demise is one among many to erupt at family-owned Canadian firms. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette
In 1925, Vincent Massey, the scion of one of many wealthiest households in Canada, did one thing that Ed Rogers immediately would discover unthinkable.
He give up.
Gov.-Gen. Vincent Massey, who left his household enterprise to later tackle the position of the Queen’s consultant in Canada, chats with D.B. Rogers (no relation to the Rogers household of telecommunications fame), president of the The Canadian Press, and his spouse at CP annual dinner in 1956.
(CP Picture)
Massey was the fourth-generation inheritor to his household’s Massey-Harris farm gear firm, then already nicely on its solution to turning into Canada’s first actually world agency. Regardless of this, Massey determined that his future lay not in tractors however in public service and philanthropy. He later turned governor common of Canada.
In realizing that his founding household wanted to chop its ties with their namesake agency, Massey set an instance that Rogers, inheritor to his family’s big company, would possibly take into account emulating.
But it’s clear that the Rogers scion has no intention of following in Massey’s clever footsteps — particularly after a British Columbia court docket dominated he’s the legit chair of Rogers Communications Inc. It’s a significant authorized victory in his battle in opposition to his mom and sisters to take management of the household agency that’s drawn worldwide comparisons to the HBO present Succession.
Edward Rogers attends the corporate’s annual common conferences in Toronto in 2019.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Younger
As an alternative, Rogers’ cussed willingness to place his father’s firm, its shareholders, its prospects and its fame in danger for an influence play to claim management smacks of poor judgment and hubris.
He might have received the messy authorized battle to manage the corporate, however the comparability between Massey and Rogers reveals vital classes that may be discovered in regards to the pitfalls — and advantages — of family-run companies in Canada.
An abundance of company household feuds
Bitter household feuds and succession battles should not new to the Canadian enterprise panorama. The truth is, a few of Canada’s most outstanding family-owned companies have had very public brawls — just a few of which even make the Rogers spat appear tame compared.
The brewing Molsons, the Magna car-part-making Stronachs, the potato-peeling McCains and even iconic Canadian companies like Canadian Tire (the battlin’ Billes household) or Tim Hortons (Tim Horton’s widow versus Ron Joyce) have had brutal, very public contretemps.
Most ended up in court docket, and sometimes resulted in a member of the family being successfully purchased out to go away — or ousted, within the case of Wallace McCain, over a succession battle — in order that the household issues would not threaten the corporate itself.
Magna Worldwide Inc. chairman Frank Stronach and his daughter Belinda, the corporate’s govt vice-chair, chat on the agency’s annual common assembly in 2010. The 2 later turned embroiled in a household feud on methods to handle the corporate that was resolved in 2020.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Frank Gunn
These historic fights, and Massey’s smart move to step away, reveal the competing dynamics of household companies.
Some are optimistic.
On the one hand, a carefully held household agency retains the enterprise “in home” for generations, making certain a gentle hand, a stalwart imaginative and prescient and values past the underside line. Rich households wish to go away a legacy, which frequently leads to beneficiant philanthropy.
This was true of Massey-Harris (later Massey-Ferguson and nonetheless later, Varity Corp.) for at the very least three generations, because the agency was guided by its carefully controlling patriarch, Hart, after which his sons, who gave most of their cash away.
A sensible household additionally is aware of when to make a dignified exit.
After Vincent Massey gave up management to skilled managers and ultimately relinquished possession to financier E.P. Taylor (who developed the Toronto suburb of Don Mills and owned famed Canadian racehorse Northern Dancer), over the following half-century, Massey turned an extremely profitable multinational.
Although it will definitely collapsed within the Eighties, Massey’s failure had a lot much less to do with the issues of household possession than a quickly altering tractor market, a Seventies recession and a few poor administration choices.
E.P. Taylor, president of the Ontario Jockey Membership on the time, escorts Queen Elizabeth previous crowds at Woodbine Racetrack in Toronto in 1973.
(THE CANADIAN PRESS)
Minefields for household companies
But these examples additionally present the issues of family-controlled companies — succession points when there isn’t a clear successor, boardroom fights when totally different relations have various visions for the agency or a easy lack of managerial skill or judgment in the case of an inheritor’s flip on the helm of the corporate.
On the identical time, households that maintain on too lengthy or ignore outdoors recommendation till it’s too late — assume the Eaton household, for instance, which noticed the division retailer chain’s storied historical past finish in chapter — illustrate how a household agency can fumble away a legacy which may have taken generations to construct.
Eaton’s staff collect outdoors the corporate’s flagship retailer on the Eaton Centre in Toronto in 1997 after the corporate launched its restructuring plan in an in the end unsuccessful effort to re-establish itself.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Kevin Frayer
With regards to the Rogers brouhaha, a lot of the aforementioned Canadian household feuds occurred in an age earlier than social media, when an ill-considered Instagram picture may cause a public relations catastrophe — like, for instance, when Ed Rogers and his spouse, Suzanne, had been photographed at Mar-a-Lago with the defeated and disgraced former president Donald Trump mid-pandemic.
Moreover, a lot of the billionaire household feuds had been additionally amicably settled, or at the very least the loser withdrew with out additional fallout for the corporate. The Rogers boardroom battle was resolved rapidly, however the dangerous blood between Ed and his household will doubtless linger for generations to come back.
The Rogers imbroglio additionally jeopardizes not solely a $26 billion merger with Shaw Communications (one other family-controlled, dual-share class telecommunications agency), but additionally threatens to bitter an already tentative buyer base — keep in mind the Nineteen Nineties unfavorable billing scandal, when the corporate billed viewers robotically after giving them new channels without cost for a number of weeks?
Extra dangerous optics for Rogers
Rogers isn’t probably the most beloved agency in Canada, and the latest revelations about Ed Rogers’ interference in contract negotiations with Raptors’ president Masai Ujuri and his poor fame amongst Toronto Blue Jays’ followers don’t assist what are already horrible optics for the agency. Rogers Communications partially owns the Raptors and wholly owns the Jays.
Ted Rogers makes use of his cellular phone after a information convention in Montréal in 2000.
(THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz).
Taking your mom and sisters to court docket, in spite of everything, may not be seen as probably the most smart method to operating a household enterprise.
Positive, Ed Rogers might have gained absolute management over the corporate’s board of administrators and the naming of the corporate’s CEO.
However at what price to the corporate and its shareholders?
Ted Rogers himself famously as soon as stated “one of the best is but to come back” — however within the case of his son’s latest chess strikes in opposition to his mom and siblings, that’s hardly set in stone for the corporate he based.
Dimitry Anastakis doesn’t work for, seek the advice of, personal shares in or obtain funding from any firm or group that may profit from this text, and has disclosed no related affiliations past their educational appointment.
