Arthur Irving, the hard-charging New Brunswick billionaire who ran Canada’s largest oil refinery, has died on the age of 93.
For many years, Arthur Irving ran Irving Oil, together with its Saint John refinery. He turned well-known for his obsession with customer support, particularly his unannounced visits to test the cleanliness of Irving fuel station washrooms.
Irving died on Monday surrounded by his spouse and daughter, the corporate mentioned in a press release.
Irving was the center son of Okay.C. Irving, the industrialist who constructed a single fuel station, sawmill and normal retailer right into a family-controlled industrial conglomerate, making him and his three sons amongst Canada’s wealthiest entrepreneurs.
In a uncommon 1998 interview with CBC New Brunswick, Arthur Irving articulated the vitality and drive that was his trademark.
“We wish our workers to be pleased with us, we wish to be pleased with them and we wish to hold happening the highway and making this a part of the nation a greater place to stay,” he mentioned.
Jabbing the air for emphasis, he added: “That is our drive, each day. Day-after-day. Day-after-day!”
The Arthur Irving Household Belief turned sole proprietor of Irving Oil in 2018 when it purchased out a one-third stake within the firm owned by the youngsters of Arthur’s late youthful brother Jack.
Forbes Journal estimated Arthur Irving’s wealth at $6.4 billion US, as of Could 6, and ranked him because the eighth richest particular person in Canada in 2023.
Saint John-born billionaire and member of the highly effective Irving household ran Irving Oil Ltd., together with Canada’s largest oil refinery, for many years.
He’s survived by his second spouse, Sandra, his youngsters Jennifer, Kenneth, Arthur, Emily and Sarah, and his older brother J.Okay. Irving, 96. His youthful brother Jack died in 2010.
Throughout his 1980 divorce from his first spouse, Joan Carlisle Irving, Arthur described his tight bond along with his father and two brothers.
“When anyone takes on an Irving, they’re going to tackle all 4 of us, okay?” he mentioned, in keeping with a courtroom transcript.
Jack Irving’s son John issued a press release paying tribute to his uncle.
“I be part of with my household and all our workers in expressing our deepest condolences to his spouse, Sandra, and his youngsters, and their households,” he mentioned in a press release.
Saint John Mayor Donna Reardon mentioned in a social media put up that Irving left a everlasting mark on the town’s panorama.
“His legacy in Saint John is immeasurable, and his contributions will perpetually be felt,” she mentioned.
Unsure time
Arthur’s dying comes at a time of nice uncertainty for Irving Oil, which employs 4,000 folks and processes 320,000 barrels of crude oil a day at its refinery.
Final yr Irving Oil shocked the province and the vitality sector when it introduced a “strategic evaluate” that it mentioned may result in the complete or partial sale of the enterprise.
A couple of months later, Arthur Irving left his position as chair of the corporate, changing into chair emeritus.
His daughter Sarah — who had been the one one in every of his youngsters nonetheless working at Irving Oil and extensively seen as his inheritor obvious — left her place of government vice-president on the identical time.
The shortage of any Irving member of the family on the senior management crew added to the rumours and hypothesis concerning the firm’s future as a privately-held, family-owned enterprise.
The Saint John refinery can be New Brunswick’s largest emitter of climate-warming greenhouse gases whereas public coverage is attempting to drive a transition to different vitality sources.
“We wish to be a part of the answer,” Irving advised creator Donald Savoie in a 2020 guide, and the corporate has been exploring decarbonization tasks.
Born on July 14, 1930, Arthur performed hockey and rugby at Rothesay Collegiate, a personal college outdoors Saint John, and was identified for his smooth-talking allure.
He attended Acadia College however didn’t graduate and joined the household enterprise, overseeing Irving Oil.
“He may mesmerize anybody and made a terrific salesman,” his first spouse Joan as soon as mentioned.
“Artwork’s a super-salesman,” his older brother, J.Okay. Irving, advised CBC in 1998.
He additionally noticed himself as a conservationist, having fun with lengthy canoe journeys in Canada’s north and supporting Geese Limitless, a wetlands preservation group, the place he finally turned nationwide president.
U.S. enlargement
The 1988 Canada-U.S. free commerce settlement paved the best way for Arthur to supervise a significant Irving Oil enlargement into the U.S., beginning in Maine.
“The richest market on the earth is within the northeastern seaboard of america. That’s the pure method for us to go,” Arthur advised biographer John DeMont round that point.
In the present day 80 per cent of Irving Oil’s refined merchandise are exported to the U.S.
In Could 1994, Arthur stared down the union representing refinery staff once they walked off the job in what would flip right into a strike lasting greater than two years.
The corporate gained an injunction to restrict picketing and managers saved the refinery working.
In August 1996 the union voted to simply accept a contract that included concessions on seniority, and that allowed the corporate to fireplace 37 staff together with the union president, a transparent victory for the corporate.
In 2005 Arthur named his son Kenneth as CEO of Irving Oil. However Kenneth left abruptly in 2010 and later revealed he suffered a psychological well being breakdown on the identical time his relationship along with his father fell aside.
He went to courtroom in Bermuda to problem his father’s plan for a brand new, billion-dollar belief to be established within the offshore tax haven.
Father-son authorized battle
The three sons of Okay.C. Irving had begun negotiating the carving up of the conglomerate in 2007 to get forward of recent federal laws that will tax earnings from offshore trusts.
A lawyer appearing for Arthur known as it “in all probability probably the most protracted and costly belief rearrangement in authorized historical past.”
As a part of the settlement to separate the Irving empire, Arthur and his household gained two-thirds possession of Irving Oil by their Bermuda-based belief.
However Kenneth opposed how his father needed to construction the belief, which led to a authorized battle and to the 2 males changing into estranged.
“It sadly is a long-standing sample of negotiating with my father. Until he is aware of that I’ve the resolve to go the entire method, I will be stonewalled,” Kenneth testified in a Bermuda courtroom.
In 2013 Arthur helped promote the proposed Vitality East pipeline that will have introduced Alberta crude throughout six provinces to Saint John for export from a terminal that will have been co-owned by Irving Oil.
The undertaking was cancelled in 2017.
Irving Oil acquired an oil refinery in Eire in 2016 and a sequence of fuel stations within the nation in 2019.
