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SYDNEY MAISLIN, 73, DIES TRANSPORT FIRM FOUNDER
LEO RYAN | Feb 21, 1995 7:00PM EST
A funeral service was held Tuesday in Montreal for Sydney Maislin who, with his family, started one of the largest transportation companies in Canada and the United States.
He died Sunday at the age of 73 after a brief illness.One of 10 children, Mr. Maislin and his five brothers began to build an enterprise around a second-hand truck in 1946. In 25 years, the company, Maislin Industries Ltd., had expanded into a $US30 million-a-year business with a fleet of 2,500 trucks and over 3,500 employees.
A passion for baseball was translated in the 1960s into a 5 percent share of the Montreal Expos Major League Baseball team.
Maislin, once ranked among the top 10 trucking firms in North America, went bankrupt some 10 years ago. It began running into financial difficulties following the takeover in 1980 of U.S.-based Gateway Transportation Co.
The acquisition coincided with soaring interest rates, a recession, and faster-than-expected deregulation of the U.S. trucking industry.
Maislin Transport, the main operating subsidiary, received a controversial C$34 million loan guarantee from the Canadian federal government in 1982, the year the company reported a C$20 million loss.
In 1983, Maislin Transport, Maislin Transport Delaware Inc. of Detroit and four other U.S. affiliates sought protection from some 2,000 creditors under Canadian and U.S. bankruptcy laws. The bankruptcy and the subsequent effort to collect undercharges from shippers led to the U.S. Supreme Court, where Maislin vs. Primary Steel served as a test case for tens of thousands of outstanding undercharge battles involving tens of millions of dollars.