Quebecor World RAI Inc history

1950: Pierre Péladeau buys his first newspaper, Le Journal de Rosemont.

In 1953 Péladeau bought his first printing press.

In 1954, even before Le Journal de Montréal was created, when he owned Le Journal de Rosemont and four other neighbourhood weeklies, Pierre Péladeau decided to print his papers himself in order to be more independent … and stay one step ahead of a competitor.

1955 After launching the magazine Nouvelles et potins, Pierre Péladeau creates a string of celebrity weeklies, disturbing the political and religious elite of the day and laying the foundations for Québec’s own star system.

The first issue hit the stands on June 15, 1964.

After an entrepreneurial beginning and incorporation in 1965, Quebecor Inc. pursued a decade long course of acquisition and expansion that aimed to consolidate the company's leading position in the fields of publishing and printing in Canada and the United States.

In 1967, Péladeau founded Le Journal de Quebec, and later added an entertainment magazine and the Winnipeg Sun to his newspaper holdings.

In 1971, Pierre Péladeau made his first foray outside Québec by acquiring the Ontario printing plant Graphic Web.

In 1972, Péladeau offered shares in Quebecor on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

In 1977, Péladeau gambled in the United States newspaper market by launching the Philadelphia Journal.

1985 – The new Journal de Montréal building opens at 4545 Frontenac

Péladeau and British publishing magnate Robert Maxwell teamed up in 1987 to form Mircor Inc., a joint subsidiary created to purchase--for C$320 million--a 54 percent stake in Donohue Inc., a leading forest products company in Quebec.

In 1988, Quebecor bought almost all of the printing assets of BCE Inc., the owner of Bell Canada, for C$161 million and a 21 percent share of Quebecor capital stock.

In 1990, Quebecor bought Maxwell Communication Corporation's 14 United States printing operations, forming the basis of Quebecor Printing.

Plummeting newsprint prices in 1991 created heavy losses at Donohue, substantially eating into Quebecor's revenues.

Quebecor expanded further in 1992 as it made large investments in its printing facilities and took Quebecor Printing Inc. public with an initial public offering that left the parent company with a 67.57 percent share of its printing subsidiary.

By the end of 1993, United States sales represented more than 73 percent of Quebecor Printing's revenues and 64 percent of Quebecor Inc.'s revenues.

On the domestic front, 1994 saw the loss of one of Quebecor's major contracts, the printing of the United States edition of Reader's Digest, the largest paid monthly circulation magazine in the United States.

Quebecor's pulp and paper subsidiary, Donohue, made a $1.1 billion acquisition in 1995, and was on the lookout for another major opportunity.

Pierre Péladeau was 71 in 1996, and beginning to talk about leaving his company to his sons.

The company moved into book publishing beginning in 1997, and within a few years Quebecor had bought up five major Quebec publishers.

Quebecor's partially owned paper subsidiary, Donohue, also made a major acquisition, buying Texas-based newsprint and specialty paper maker Champion International in 1998.

The company also moved into television, buying the French-language network TQS. In 1999 the company launched a New Media division, capitalizing on the boom in Internet communications.

Timeline in pictures In 2000, with Le Journal de Montréal and Le Journal de Québec #1 in their markets, Quebecor makes the shift to digital to maximize distribution of its content.

2005 Quebecor Media acquires Sogidesand becomes the largest publisher of French-language books in Canada.

2006 Two state-of-the-art printing plants built in the Montréal and Toronto areas at a cost of more than $200 million.

In 2008, with the United States financial crisis and the decline of the printing industry, Quebecor Printing sells its assets.

Quebecor would sell Donohue to the Abitibi-Consolidated paper company in 2010.

On March 1, 2011, Quebecor was chosen by Québec City to be the exclusive manager of its future arena for 25 years.

2013 Videotron launches the Club illico over-the-top video service, carving out a dominant position in the French-language market against United States-based services.

2014 TVA Group acquires the assets of Global Vision, now known as MELS.