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11-17-2005 03:49 PM |
The Right Honourable Conrad Moffat Black, Baron Black of Crossharbour, PC, OC (born August 25, 1944 in Montreal, Quebec), is a Canadian-born British biographer, financier and newspaper magnate. He is the latest in a series of Canadian-born British press lords?his predecessors were Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook, and Roy Thomson, 1st Baron Thomson of Fleet. Black is married to Barbara Amiel, a well-known right-wing columnist.
Through his Ravelston Corporation he has a 82% share-holding in the Toronto-based Hollinger Inc. group which, through Hollinger International, owns or controls several newspapers, notably in the United States, including the Chicago Sun-Times (1994). He also holds a minority interest in the New York Sun (2002). Hollinger once owned a large number of Canadian newspapers, accounting for a plurality of that country's daily newspaper circulation, and acquired and relaunched the Financial Post as a section of the National Post (1998), in large part to get a foothold in the competitive Toronto newspaper market. In 2004 his Telegraph Group in the United Kingdom was sold to David and Frederick Barclay, after the accounting practices of Black and his board came under intense scrutiny by Hollinger shareholders and the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission (SEC). Today, Black and his former confederates have been removed from the boards of Hollinger International and Hollinger Inc., his Ravelston Corporation is under court protection against its creditors in Canada and has been indicted by the US Department of Justice. Black's lieutenant and closest confidante David Radler has pleaded guilty to charges of mail fraud in the US and is expected to testify against Black whose future and reputation remain clouded pending investigation by the US Justice department and numerous lawsuits filed by Hollinger shareholders.
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