Business Ventures
As a young banker with the Union Bank of Halifax, Killam became close friends with John F. Stairs and Max Aitken (Lord Beaverbrook) who put Killam in charge of his Royal Securities. In 1919, Killam bought out Aitken and took full control of the company. Killam's business dealings primarily involved the financing of large pulp and paper and hydro-electric projects throughout Canada and Latin America. Killam was believed to be the richest man in Canada at the time. One of his larger projects in his native province was the creation of the Mersey Paper Company Ltd. and its related electrical generating stations and shipping fleet.
In 1922 he married Dorothy Brooks Johnston. Notwithstanding his prodigious financial accomplishments, Killam was a very reserved man who eschewed publicity and was virtually unknown outside a small circle of close acquaintances. Killam died in 1955 at his Quebec fishing lodge. By then he was considered to be the richest man in Canada.
Read more about this topic: Izaak Walton Killam
Famous quotes containing the words business and/or ventures:
“Towns find it as hard as houses of business to rise again from ruin.”
—Honoré De Balzac (1799–1850)
“Wine and cheese are ageless companions, like aspirin and aches, or June and moon, or good people and noble ventures ...”
—M.F.K. Fisher (1908–1992)