Endless questions remain. Is Prem Watsa of Fairfax Financial still interested in parts of the business? Who might buy the newspaper chain, and at what price? What will become of the National Post? Will there be anything left for the Aspers themselves?
This much is clear: Leonard is facing serious, possibly terminal financial trouble. Canwest’s bond holders are owed an overdue interest payment of US$30.4 million on US$761 million of senior subordinated notes. The total corporate debt remains at $4.1 billion, and the bond holders or the lending syndicate led by the Bank of Nova Scotia could drive it into bankruptcy protection at any time. Canwest Media’s original $300-million credit line has already been reduced to $112 million, most of which has been drawn down.
At the same time, revenues of Network Ten, the once highly profitable Australian television operation, have stalled badly and the property is in danger of going into default. The company’s most consistent money loser (at one point dropping $1.5 million a week) has been the National Post, which the Aspers have turned into a Conrad Black house organ. Black originally sold Izzy 50 per cent of the paper for $100 million, and the balance, a year later, for a looney. Izzy overpaid both times.
Individuals die; family dynasties abide—or so the theory went. The reality of succession in today’s globalized economy—even before the crash—has been sharply different. Canada was once run by a self-perpetuating clique of moneyed clans, most of whom helped finance the social welfare and creative arts of the communities in which they lived. Few did so more passionately than Izzy Asper in Winnipeg, through his family foundation which has given away well over $200 million to local improvements, and who, with Ottawa’s help, is currently building the Museum for Human Rights. (The only remnants of Winnipeg content within the Asper clan are David’s recent deal to buy the Blue Bomber football club and the fact that long-time Toronto resident Leonard maintains his Winnipeg connection by keeping his Manitoba cell number.)
The odd patriarch may have maintained the primacy of his offspring on the basis of their seeds instead of their deeds, but in an age when global corporate conglomerates are as mean as they are lean, family-run firms have become arcane exceptions. Two dozen of the most powerful families that had once held sway over the Canadian economy lost their influence and their pride of place, not by nationalization or some other anti-capitalist device—but by the iron laws of genetics. The passage of the entrepreneurial gene—the spark that gave rise to the original family empires—has long been extinguished. It simply is not transferable from one generation to the next. The casualty list has included such once-mighty family-owned business empires as the Eatons, the western branch of the Siftons, the Birkses, Kofflers, Crosbies, Romans, Blackburns, Bassetts, Lundrigrans, Poslunses, Creeds, Burtons, Steinbergs, Hermants, Gersteins, Jefferys, Iveys, McLeans, Woodwards, Crosses and several lesser clans. Now, the Aspers have outrun their corporate achievements. What was once Canada’s mightiest media empire is fighting for its life, against seemingly insurmountable odds. The Asper family had a great run but the empire Izzy built is running out of time for a resurrection.
