INDEPTH: KEN THOMSON
Timeline
CBC News Online | June 12, 2006
June 12, 2006
Ken Thomson dies of an apparent heart attack in his Toronto office.
March 2005
Forbes magazine lists Thomson as Canada's richest man, with a net worth of $17.9 billion US.
June 11, 2002
Thomson Corp. makes a stock offering of 32 million shares, raising $1 billion US. The next day Thomson Corp. began trading for the first time on the New York Stock Exchange. Thomson Newspapers had been a publicly traded company in Canada since 1965.
July 11, 2002
Thomson buys The Massacre of the Innocents , a painting by Peter Paul Rubens, for $117 million at an auction in the U.K. It broke the record for the most expensive painting sold at a British auction and was the fourth-highest price ever paid for a painting at auction.
May 8, 2002
Ken Thomson presides over his last annual meeting as chairman of Thomson Corp. before handing the position over to his son David. Thomson remains on the company's board and as chairman of Woodbridge, his family's holding company.
Following his retirement, Thomson would donate nearly 2,000 works of art worth more than $300 million US to the Art Gallery of Ontario and pledge $60 million US for expansion of the AGO.
Sept. 15, 2000
Thomson Corp. joins with BCE Inc., the parent company of Bell Canada, to form a new private multimedia company, later named Bell Globemedia. The main holdings are the CTV television network, the Globe and Mail and an assortment of independent TV stations and speciality channels.
Feb. 15, 2000
Thomson Corp. announces it is selling 130 of its newspapers in Canada and the U.S. to concentrate on its electronic services. The Globe and Mail is now the company's only newspaper.
1995
Thomson sells 19 of its newspapers — 12 dailies and seven community papers — to rival Hollinger Inc.
1980
Circulation of the Thomson newspapers exceeds one million in Canada.
1976
Ken Thomson takes over his family's company after the death of his father, Roy. He also inherits the British peerage title Lord Thomson of Fleet.
1956
Thomson marries Nora Marilyn Lavis. The couple would have three children: David, Peter and Lesley.
1952
Thomson takes over as president and chairman of Thomson Newspapers.
1950
Thomson buys his first Cornelius Krieghoff painting. Over the years, Thomson would acquire almost all of the artist's work.
1947
Thomson becomes a reporter at the Timmins Daily Press, the first newspaper his father's company acquired.
1942
Thomson graduates from Upper Canada College. He attends the University of Toronto, but drops out to join the Royal Canadian Air Force.
Following the Second World War, Thomson would earn a degree in economics and law from Cambridge University in the U.K.
Sept. 1, 1923
Kenneth Roy Thomson is born in Toronto. He is the youngest child and only son of Roy and Edna Thomson.
^TOP
|
|
 |
 MENU |
|
|
| MORE: |
|
|
|
