When travelling to other cities eventually many people go to the University of the place. Some of them we have heard about and want to see to the lands or the people – the last visit to Boston included a walk around Harvard (for example of all the law schools  in the United States the Supreme Court Justices went to either Yale or Harvard). A number of years ago, when in Montreal went through McGill University and saw the name Macdonald. It turns out there is an interesting legacy as outlined in the book Sir William C Macdonald – A Biography by William Fong published by The Macdonald-Stewart Foundation, McGill-Queens University Press, Montreal, 2007.

With every company, they would love to have limited competition or at least have stable prices or have prices go up every year across the competitors. Some industries are regulated by the government (think utilities) and others are not. The ones that are not invariably have some sort of price fixing history in the past. Tobacco is no exception – there have been wholesale grocers price fixing; for a time there was the monopoly pricing of the biggest company – the American Tobacco Company and the Tobacco Trust lead by James Duke. Mr. Duke was in the cigarette business having invented a machine to roll cigarettes and then ensured American Tobacco received a royalty from every company operating it. The Trust was broken up and 4 large companies were the result: American Tobacco, RJ Reynolds, Liggett & Myers, and Lorillard. The size of the company invariably results in the public believing or not believing there was or is price fixing. In some industries, it is follow the leader but Mr. Macdonald would say they had an influence, he was not directly involved

When Mr. Macdonald ceased operating the business he passed it his partner’s sons who eventually sold the company to RJ Reynolds. For much of his life, Mr. Macdonald seemed to be a solitary figure who went about building his business, as he entered the last 25 years of his life he turned his eye to donating his money to good works. The good works he chose was to enhance the University around the corner of his home – McGill. He liked the approach of the leadership, he like helping young people and he was interested in the research students at a university do. He was impressed with what MIT had done and was doing in the Boston area and wanted to duplicate it in Montreal. With his money and an one million dollar grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, McGill developed a leading reputation in the areas of medicine and sciences.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, in running a business, particularly a large one there are many challenges for all sorts of places – the competition, the government, and the public. Some times they will see you as the enemy (in some ways you are); sometimes you will be seen as the friend; as long as you are relevant in your customers eyes in the important thing. Giving some money away helps the world see you in a better light. In the book, the author writes what motivated Mr. Macdonald to give the bulk of his hard-earned and carefully saved fortune to education? This was a man who saved or invested half his income. Perhaps he delighted in creating superior opportunities for educating others.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.