Principal Group
Defunct group of Canadian financial companies
The Principal Group was a group of interrelated Canadian financial companies that collapsed in 1987, resulting in losses to an estimated 67,000 people. Losses were recovered in part through provincial governments paying compensation, based on findings as to deficiencies in regulatory oversight.
History
The Principal Group was primarily three companies: First Investors Corporation, Associated Investors of Canada and Principal Savings and Trust Corporation. First Investors Corporation was established by Donald Cormie in 1954. The company was initially based in Edmonton, Alberta. The company sold investment contracts, which were contracts by which investors remitted monthly amounts to First Investors Corporation, in return for a promised future redemption amount, plus interest. In 1959, First Investors opened offices in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Newfoundland. At the same time, it also opened offices in Washington, Oregon and Colorado as Principal Investors, since the name First Investors was owned in the United States by another party. Associated Investors of Canada was acquired in 1962.
The companies were subject to Alberta Securities Commission regulation and also required licences to sell investment contracts.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Principal Group” is defunct group of Canadian financial companies. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Principal, Group and Defunct, not as a finished interpretation.
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This entry incorporates text from “Principal Group” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.