Clay Riddell Success Story
Clayton Riddell is an oil baron from Canada. Over the last forty years, he has built an empire of resources. His tale is a classic case of talent meeting opportunity; it all started with the gas wells that were almost barren in 1974. The name of his company was Paramount Resources and it is now one of his biggest holdings where he is the CEO and the chairman. He also holds Shares in a number of energy companies in Canada. He is one of the most significant share holders of Calgary Flames of National Hockey League.
Beginnings
Born in 1936, he did his graduation with Honours in Geology. Apart from being a co-owner of the Calgary Holmes, he also has shares in the Calgary restaurant Catch. His net worth is estimated to be around $US 2.5 billion according to reports in 2011.
Ridell had also been ranked as the twelfth wealthiest man in Canada by Forbes. He also ranks 459th among the richest men all over the word. He has been the Chairperson of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers and also the Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologist president.
A faculty known as The Clayton H. Riddell Faculty of Resources, Earth and Environment has been instituted at the University of Manitoba after his name. An amount of $10 million was donated by Riddel for the creation of an endowment fund of the faculty.
The faculty is a combination of the Department of Environment and Geography as well as the Department of Geological Sciences along with Natural Resources Institute. He had been the Officer of the Order in Canada in the year 2008. Riddell made a hefty donation to the Carleton University in 2010 which let the university create the first even graduation program in the field of political management in Canada.
The donation made to Carleton was the largest in the history of the University. In 2012, Ridell had been embroiled in a scandal after revelations that he was in a donor agreement with the Carleton University of Ottawa to have the last word in bringing certain positions of political management in the school.
Recent News
Riddel is also the owner of the MGM Energy, Perpetual Energy Inc as well as Trilogy Trust. In 2014, MGM energy took the takeover bid from the Paramount Resources. His empire of gas and oil companies has a capitalization of about $3.5 billion. The landholdings of the company extend from the gas plays of Alberta to the shareholdings of the North-western Territories.
Trilogy Energy Corp, which is controlled by Riddell has recently announced a great reduction in the plans of capital spending. The capital budget announced in 2015 was only $100 million as compared to the budget of 2014 which was $375 million. It has been a huge reduction in the spending plan of about 73% which was quite unexpected in the industry. However, officials of Paramount have announced that the new project of the natural gas plant will be spent for adequately and the overall reduction of expenditure is expected to be around fifty percent.
