New Owner

In the bidding for the Toronto Globe & Mail, Canada's biggest morning daily (circ. 236,593), newsmen thought they knew all the likely entries, e.g., Britain's Lord Rothermere, Canadian Publisher Roy Thomson. Manchester. N.H. Publisher William Loeb. Their entry list was too narrow. Last week a bidder who had not been mentioned stepped in and picked up the Globe & Mail for $10.8 million. The buyer: Montreal Financier R. Howard Webster, 45, publicity-shy bachelor multimillionaire. Not one Globe & Matt staffer knew who Webster was, and the new proprietor refused requests for interviews even with newsmen on his own paper.

Actually. Webster is a director of a number of Canadian and U.S. corporations, owns the largest single block of stock in Eversharp, Inc. From his second home in Detroit he manages such interests as Annis Furs and Detroit's 47-story Pendbscot Building, tallest building in the city. Financier Webster, who has never owned a newspaper before, bought the profitable Globe & Mail from the estates of George McCullagh and William H. Wright, says he plans no changes in the paper's editorial operations.

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