Conrad Black

Through his Ravelston Corporation[?] he has a 82% share-holding in the Toronto-based Hollinger Inc.[?] group which owns or controls many newspapers in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and other countries, including The Daily Telegraph (1985), The New York Sun (2002), The Chicago Sun-Times[?] (1994) and The Jerusalem Post (1988). He also controls the right-wing magazine The Spectator (1988).

He was born into a wealthy Montreal family and was educated at Carleton University (History, 1965) and Laval University[?] (Law, 1970), later completing a MA at McGill University. He became involved in a number of businesses mainly newspapers but including mining and publishing. His family founded the Ravelston Corporation in 1969 as an investment vehicle. Black founded the Sterling Newspapers group in 1971.

He was taken under the wing Bud McDougald[?] and E.P. Taylor[?], two of the most powerful businessmen in Canada. Following the death of McDougald, in 1978 Conrad Black became chairman of Argus Corporation, a mammoth Canadian holding company, and spun the Hollinger group out from Argus in 1981. He became CEO of Argus in 1985. It was also in 1985 that he first entered the UK newspaper business, buying into the Telegraph group. By 1990 his companies ran over 400 newspaper titles in North America, many of these were disposed of towards the end of the 1990s with around 150 titles being sold in a single deal with CanWest[?] in 1998. He launched the National Post in 1998 but sold his interest in 2001. He gave up the majority of his remaining Canadian media interests in 2001.

Conrad Black gave up his Canadian citizenship to become a British Lord because of Canada's Nickle Resolution that prevents Canadians from receiving foreign honours. He had attempted to hold dual nationality, suing the Canadian government in 2001.