National Post (National Edition)
Prodigious business writer knew ‘every CEO’
Robert Gibbens, 1924-2016
MONTREAL• The first Parti Québécois government had just been elected in 1976, markets were slumping and everyone wanted to know what the separatists’ economic expert Jacques Parizeau had planned.
While other reporters worked the phones, Montreal Star business columnist Robert Gibbens figured the best bet would be to knock on Parizeau’s door in Outremont. He was invited in for a chat and published his scoop in which the soon-tobe-sworn-in finance minister tried to allay investors’ fears.
Gibbens, who died Saturday at age 92 from complications of a heart and lung condition, earned a reputation as the dean of Montreal financial writers — a walking encyclopedia of business knowledge for whom doors always seemed to open.
His newspaper career spanned nearly 70 years, beginning in his native England soon after the end of the Second World War. In Canada, he was business editor at the Montreal Star, a correspondent for the Financial Times and Globe and Mail and, for the last 28 years, a freelancer for the Financial Post and the Montreal Gazette. His final Gazette story was published last year when he was 91.
Born in 1924 in Potters Bar, now part of London, Gibbens’ adventures in journalism were preceded by military service during the war. He joined the Royal Armoured Corps (4th/7th Royal Dragoon Guards) in 1942, and two years later was in the D-Day landings.
Fighting through France and Germany, his outfit reached Bremerhaven, Germany, on V-Day, May 8, 1945. Along the way, Gibbens and the men under his command captured a German town without firing a shot, and for that he was awarded the Military Cross. He remained with the Dragoons until 1947, serving in Egypt and Palestine.
When he returned to England, Gibbens began his newspaper career. In a sense, it was a craft to which he was born. His father was manager of Lord Rothermere’s chain of newspapers, which included the Daily Mail.
In 1955, he was at the Daily Express in London. There he met the love of his life, France Tellier, daughter of the illustrious Quebec family of lawyers, politicians and entrepreneurs out of Joliette. They were engaged in 1957, left England for Quebec, and were married in the Joliette cathedral the same year.
Gibbens resumed his newspaper career, first with Canadian Press and then the Montreal Star. Dominique Gibbens, one of his five children — all daughters — recalled fondly how as young girls they loved going into The Star building on weekends.
While Gibbens was a man dedicated to his calling, he kept his family close. “Dad came home to the dinner table every night and always seemed patient and available to us, something that seems incredible to me in hindsight,” Dominique Gibbens said.
Over the years Gibbens built up an impressive network of contacts and a deep understanding of the business world. “He was the best in Montreal,” said Kevin Dougherty, who first worked with Gibbens at the Financial Post. “He took the time to develop his own files and knew some companies better than their CEOs.”
Roger D. Landry, former publisher of La Presse and chairman of the Opéra de Montréal, knew Gibbens as both a journalist and an opera lover.
“He he had what I consider one of the most essential qualities in any journalist: He was fair play,” Landry said. “He was very dedicated to making sure that the information he was reporting was right on key and that the other side always had a chance to express himself.”
Financial Post associate editor James Walker first met Gibbens in the late 1980s and was immediately impressed by the refined gentleman, nothing like the typical hard-smoking, harddrinking journalists. “He seemed to know every CEO,” Walker recalled. “On our way to lunch, execs would come up and shake his hand.”
Gibbens kept files that would put a librarian to shame, and he was generous with his knowledge. Reford MacDougall, who worked with Gibbens at the Montreal Star and later helped found the Montreal Economic Institute, said Gibbens knew so much because sources felt they could confide in him.
“He got tremendous background, because people really trusted him and they opened up with him,” MacDougall said.
In his later years, Gibbens’ biggest challenge was his wife’s failing health. She was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, but despite his own struggles with heart disease, he was devoted to his wife’s care until her death in 2015.
Throughout his later years, he never lost his passion for journalism. Gibbens was proud of his 11 grandchildren, taking an interest in what each was up to. One, Tina Gibbens-Tenneriello, followed him into journalism, and he was a mentor to her, as he had been to so many reporters over the years. He copy-edited her work until the end of his life, even in hospital during his final illness.