Max Bell - Newspaper Career

Newspaper Career

Despite the oil strike, Bell continued to work for the Royal Bank at the Albertan. After seven years of what he called "clerking", he made a bid to regain his family's control of the paper. He convinced five friends in the oil and gas industry to form the Essex Company and put up $35,000 to operate the paper. He then convinced the Royal Bank to give him control, and in mid-1943, was made publisher of the Albertan. Under Bell's leadership, the paper returned to profitability, prompting the partners in Essex to raise his salary to $85 per week. Within three years, Bell was able to repay both his partners in Essex and purchase full control of the paper from the bank. Almost immediately after repaying his partners, Bell convinced them to purchase the Edmonton Bulletin. However, Bell lacked the capital to support the paper that was strife with labour difficulties and old equipment that required replacing. He made the decision to fold the paper in 1951.

While he worked to regain control of the Albertan, Bell also continued to invest in oil ventures. He partnered with Frank McMahon and others in forming Empire Petroleum Limited in 1944, an unsuccessful attempt a raising enough capital to drill a wildcat well. Two years later he tried again with two new companies, Reef Petroleum and Tower Petroleum. The two companies also failed to find oil, but the efforts raised enough money for Bell and his partners to form Calvan Petroleums on the heels of Imperial Oil's discovery of a large oil field at Redwater, Alberta. The company found success trading in leases and drilling rights on crown land, prompting Bell to form several other oil companies in the years that followed. In 1951, Bell amalgamated his various companies into Calvan Consolidated Ltd. The new company held an interest in 77 wells at the Redwater field. He sold Calvan to Petrofina in 1955 for $40 million, and while he continued to trade in oil and gas companies for several years, his focus returned to the newspaper business.

Bell purchased the Victoria Times in 1959 for $750,000, and one year later built a plant to print both the Times and The Colonist, which he gained control of in 1953 for $1 million. In 1954, Bell acquired a controlling interest in the Lethbridge Herald. He had a habit of appearing unannounced at the offices of his papers, often to chat with the editors, but never told them what to print. Bell continued to acquire newspapers, joining with Victor Sifton, owner of the Winnipeg Free Press to purchase the Ottawa Journal in 1959. The pair combined their interests to form FP (Federated Paper) Publications Ltd. that same year. Bell purchased the Vancouver Sun in 1963, and Toronto's Globe and Mail in 1965, making FP Publications Canada's largest newspaper syndicate. By 1972, the papers had a combined circulation of over 820,000.

Among acquisitions made outside the newspaper industry, Bell led a group that attempted to gain control of the Hudson's Bay Company in 1950. The bid was thought to have been motivated by the land and mineral rights that the company controlled, but was thwarted by company bylaws that prevented the transfer of such rights. It was later suggested that Bell backed out of the deal in the belief that the company would struggle to adapt to his ideas. By 1965, Bell was the largest single shareholder in Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR).

In addition to serving as a director for the CPR, Bell was also director for the Bank of Nova Scotia, was a member of the board of governors at McGill and was a senior director of the Calgary Exhibition and Stampede.