Arthur Irving, who led family oil refinery’s vast expansion, dies at 93

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Arthur Irving, the billionaire oil man who shaped Atlantic Canada as head of New Brunswick’s Irving Oil, died Monday at the age of 93.

The second-oldest son of industrialist K.C. Irving, he belonged to a dynasty of three brothers who dominated the provincial economy each in their own way after dividing up the family’s empire of energy, forestry, real estate, shipbuilding and media assets in the early 1990s.

It’s been said that from the hills near Mr. Irving’s mansion in Saint John, he could take in the full sweep of his family’s realm, from the smoke billowing from the Irving pulp mill overseen by his elder brother James J.K. Irving to the construction, steel and engineering companies controlled by his late younger brother John (Jack) Irving.

But the most prominent feature on the landscape was the massive refinery belonging to Irving Oil, which Mr. Irving, one of the most hard-driven oil men in the country, vastly expanded.

Indeed, Irving Oil flourished under his watch, joining the ranks as one of the country’s leading companies. Forbes estimates that the Canadian businessman was worth US$6.4-billion. Meanwhile Bloomberg pegged Mr. Irving’s net worth at US$9.8-billion as of May 12, making him the 248th-richest person on the planet.

However, Mr. Irving’s death also leaves questions about the future of the energy giant. Last June, the company launched an internal strategic review that it said could lead to the sale of the fuel supplier, which operates Canada’s largest refinery in Saint John, a second refinery in Ireland and more than 1,000 fuel stations in Eastern Canada, New England and Ireland.

Then in October, Mr. Irving stepped down as chairman, taking the role of chairman emeritus. His daughter, Sarah Irving, also left the company at the same time. She was at his bedside along with Mr. Irving’s wife, Sandra, when he died, the company said in a statement.

Born in 1930 in Saint John, Mr. Irving was a third-generation member of the Irving family business dynasty, started in 1881 when his grandfather, James Dergavel Irving, bought a small sawmill. But it was the oil business launched in 1924 by Mr. Irving’s father, K.C. Irving, that drove much of the family wealth.

Mr. Irving was extraordinarily competitive and had the same hard nose for business as his father.

“He took what his father started and grew Irving Oil to the next level. The scale of it all is massive,” said Jacques Poitras, author of a 2014 biography of the family, Irving vs Irving: Canada’s Feuding Billionaires and the Stories They Won’t Tell.

To many, Mr. Irving was the most mercurial and outspoken of the three brothers.

Frank McKenna, the former premier of New Brunswick, remembered a time of acrimonious and prolonged strikes at the Irving refinery in Saint John, and a series of “very strong conversations” he had with the titan of industry as he intervened to encourage negotiations and peace between the workers and Arthur Irving.

Mr. McKenna recalls the businessman once saying to him “Mr. Premier, I know you think we’re big. But we’re just minnows, when you put us up against Exxon and Chevron, and companies like that. And so, we have to fight hard to survive and succeed.”

But alongside his “extraordinary business acumen,” Mr. McKenna remembers Mr. Irving as personable, respectful and deferential; despite knowing each other for more than 30 years, Mr. Irving never stopped calling him “Mr. Premier.”

“You would see him at hockey games sitting next to the local plumber or a local carpenter. He was very egalitarian in that respect.”

Mr. Irving joined Irving Oil in 1951 after his graduation from Acadia University, where he would later serve as chancellor. The school would also benefit from Mr. Irving’s philanthropy, through the creation, in partnership with Ducks Unlimited, of the Beaubassin Research Station in Aulac, N.B., where students carry out environment and history studies of the area.

Mr. Irving worked at the family company for years alongside his brothers, building up the Irving group of companies into the all-encompassing economic tapestry of today. Mr. Irving and his two brothers divvied up the company after their father’s death in 1992.

By then, Irving Oil already operated Canada’s largest refinery. Under Mr. Irving, who became president of Irving Oil in 1972, the company branched into the Northeastern U.S. market.

Despite its dominance in the region Irving Oil has been searching for a way forward since launching its strategic review last summer. In the wake of that announcement, not only did Mr. Irving and Ms. Irving step down, but Irving Oil president Ian Whitcomb also left the company.

Mr. Irving had been preparing his daughter, Sarah, the only child from his second marriage, to take over leadership of the company. In 2015, she was elevated to the position of executive vice-president and chief brand officer.

However, with her resignation, there are no Irving family members within the top ranks.

An earlier succession attempt involving Mr. Irving’s eldest son Kenneth Irving left a deep scar on the family and company. Kenneth was put in charge of Irving Oil in 2000 and in time Mr. Irving began to step back from the business and into retirement. It didn’t last.

Mr. Irving he often made his presence bluntly felt, dropping by the company at random times to assert his control over even small details such as an office renovation, while at other times he berated and contradicted Kenneth in corporate meetings, The Globe and Mail reported in 2017.

The tensions between father and son came to a head in 2010 over Mr. Irving’s plans for a trust and how his assets would be distributed to his family members. Mr. Irving told Irving Oil employees his son was taking a leave of absence for “personal reasons.” Days later, Kenneth announced he was leaving for good.

In the years after that, Mr. Irving seized on the prospect of the Energy East pipeline to bring crude oil from Alberta to the Irving refinery. That never panned out, and with the Energy East proposal collapsing, Irving Oil snapped up a crude oil refinery near Cork, Ireland, in 2016, followed three years later with the purchase of service stations in Ireland.

Mr. Irving rarely spoke publicly, but when he did it, he echoed the family’s conception of itself as “small-town New Brunswick entrepreneurs in a big world,” said Mr. Poitras, noting the billionaire would pay tribute to local staff and talk about building things in the province so it could prosper.

That’s why the prospect of a change of ownership came as such a shock, he said. “It was mind-boggling because it’s so tied up in who they are, but of course you don’t get to be a billionaire by being overly sentimental either.”

It is difficult to know exactly how much Irving Oil and its assets are worth; it is privately held and offers few financial details.

Regardless, Irving Oil is one of New Brunswick’s largest employers. In addition to the refinery, it also operates the Canaport deep-water oil terminal on the north shore of the Bay of Fundy and has made steps in renewable energy.

The retail business prowess that led to an Irving gas station on virtually every corner in Atlantic Canada was a point of pride for Mr. Irving, said Mr. McKenna – as were the Irving Big Stop full-service operations alongside highways.

“When you went to an Irving, you would know it’s always going to be brightly lit, it’s going to have good food, and it’s going to have clean washrooms,” Mr. McKenna said. The latter was assured because Arthur Irving was “extraordinarily hands-on” and would often drive his motorcycle across the region, stopping in unexpectedly to inspect retail outlets and make sure their washrooms were clean.

John Risley, the Nova Scotia seafood and green energy entrepreneur, said he remembers Mr. Irving as a “strong guy physically and mentally.” Mr. Irving never touched alcohol and was active until a few months ago.

“We’ve lost a great champion of Atlantic Canada,” said Mr. Risley.

As for Irving Oil’s next chapter, Mr. Risley also acknowledged the company’s struggle with family tensions in the past. “I’m keeping my fingers crossed there’s not a big family dispute that erupts from this,” he said.

Mr. Irving’s long-time friend Robert Prichard, chair of Torys LLP in Toronto, recalled his energetic nature, and how he would include friends in everything from 10-day canoe trips to shooting trips in Scotland and snowmobiling adventures in northern New Brunswick.

“He worked extremely hard, but he worked equally hard at having fun, caring for his friends and family,” Mr. Prichard said.