The Irving influence | A look at the powerful Canadian family that recently expressed interest in the state's largest newspaper chain
In early September, a New Brunswick company called Brunswick News toured the offices of the Portland Press Herald, the state’s largest daily newspaper, according to Tom Bell, a staff writer at the Press Herald and president of its workers union, the Portland Newspaper Guild. Blethen Maine Newspapers in March put the Press Herald and its sister papers — the Morning Sentinel in Waterville and Kennebec Journal in Augusta — up for sale, and Brunswick News is one of at least two interested parties to have considered the paper. But what was notable here is that the owner of Brunswick News is Canada’s billionaire J.K. Irving, a member of the Irving family whose multibillion-dollar empire dominates the Canadian Maritime economy and plays a major role in Maine’s economy.
So, who are the Irvings and how do they influence the Maine business landscape? And what could Maine newspaper readers expect if an Irving-owned media company snapped up three of the state’s daily newspapers?
Brunswick News may make life difficult for the local union should the company buy the Maine papers, according to Bob Rupert, former Canadian director of the Newspaper Guild, a labor union that represents 32,000 communications workers in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico, and current editor of the Carleton Free Press, one of the few independent weekly newspapers in New Brunswick. “It’s unfortunate, but the Irvings have put a man [Brunswick News Vice President and General Manager Victor Mlodecki] in charge of their newspaper holdings in New Brunswick who has an extreme bottom-line mentality, very little respect for editorial quality or integrity and no time at all for unions,” Rupert says.
While neither Portland Press Herald Publisher Charles Cochrane nor Mlodecki would comment on whether Brunswick News is interested in Blethen Maine Newspapers, Mlodecki did respond simply to the criticism of his management style: “We produce award winning newspapers.”
Here, there and everywhere
The Irving family of businesses, most notably its largest companies, Irving Oil and J.D. Irving Ltd., both with global headquarters in Saint John, N.B., includes roughly 300 companies that span the forest products, petroleum, shipbuilding, construction, retail, transportation and agricultural industries. In the Maritimes, the Irvings manufacture everything from diapers to tugboats. The Irving family employs eight percent of the workforce in New Brunswick, the family’s home province, according to a 2003 press release from the communications department of the New Brunswick government. Forbes magazine estimates the three Irving brothers who run the family operations — Jim (J.K.), Arthur and Jack — are together worth about $5.8 billion.
The Irving family, none of whom would comment for this article, has operated in Maine for decades, and has increased its investment in the state over the last 10 years with acquisitions including a 2006 purchase of a majority share in a marine terminal in South Portland that supplies gas to fuel stations in Maine and New Hampshire. Irving Woodlands LLC, a Fort Kent-based subsidiary of J.D. Irving Ltd., owns 1.25 million acres of Maine timberland and is the largest landowner in the state, according to Bob Wagner, a forestry professor at the University of Maine at Orono. Irving Woodlands’ estimated annual sales are $23.9 million, according to Dun & Bradstreet, a New Jersey-based firm that supplies business information and research. Irving also owns sawmills in Strong and Dixfield. While vertically integrated companies like Great Northern Paper were once the norm — owning the land, timber and mills that turned the timber into paper or lumber — Irving Woodlands is today the only large-scale vertically integrated forest products company left, Wagner says.
Irving’s reach extends beyond its presence in the Maine timber industry. Among the other Maine holdings of J.D. Irving Ltd. are Cavendish Farm Operations Inc., a potato grower and packager in Aroostook County; Cavendish Agri Services, a major chemical and fertilizer supplier to Aroostook County farmers with locations in Presque Isle, Houlton and Caribou; and New Brunswick Southern Railway, which owns roughly 105 miles of freight rail line in Maine and provides a direct line to Saint John’s deep water port. In total, J.D. Irving Ltd. employs more than 300 Mainers across its operations, according to Mary Keith, vice president of communications for the company.
Another Irving business, Irving Oil, with U.S. headquarters in Portsmouth, N.H., owns and operates 121 gas stations in the state and supplies a good percentage of the gas our cars burn. Irving Oil’s refinery in Saint John supplies 45% of the refined petroleum products in the northeastern United States north of New York City, according to its website, and the company claims six out of 10 cars in Boston run on Irving gasoline. Irving Oil declined to comment for this story, but according to Dun & Bradstreet, Irving Oil Corp.’s U.S. operations have estimated annual sales of $260.7 million.
Inside Irving’s vast empire is Brunswick News, which is solely owned by J.K. Irving. Brunswick News dominates New Brunswick’s media landscape. It owns all three English-language daily newspapers in the province, as well as 19 weekly English and French language papers.
Kim Kierans, director of the School of Journalism at the University of King’s College in Halifax, N.S., says Brunswick News’ interest in Blethen Maine makes sense. “It’s a natural connection for [the Irvings] to go into areas where they have lots of businesses.” she says. “They’re also really good business people, so there’s obviously money to be made.”
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