Argus Corporation Limited was an investment holding company based in Toronto, Ontario. During the 1960s and 1970s, it was the most powerful and best known conglomerate in Canada,[1] at one time controlling the companies making up 10 percent of all shares traded daily on the Toronto Stock Exchange.[2]
At its height in the 1970s, it was a true conglomerate with many unrelated businesses. Among these were Dominion grocery stores, Orange Crush soft drinks, Massey Ferguson farm machinery, Domtar wood products and Carling O'Keefe breweries.
The company was purchased by Conrad Black in 1978. Black and his associates sold off most of the Argus assets by 1985, and by 2005 Argus contained only one asset and was itself wholly owned by Black's Ravelston Corporation. Due to the fallout of ongoing lawsuits, Ravelston went bankrupt in 2008, and Argus disappeared.