Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.In the annals of boardroom drama, the video message clip that emerged in early 2022 was quite a show-stopper. “Edward. This is from Suzanne,” growled the actor Brian Cox, famous for playing the media magnate Logan Roy in the hit television series Succession. “Congratulations on your real-life Succession at Rogers Communications. And also, having Joe Natale fuck the fuck off.”The intended recipient was Edward Rogers, a Canadian telecoms scion and something of a real-world equivalent to the would-be heir-apparent Kendall Roy character in the TV series. Rogers is married to Suzanne — although whether or not she paid for the clip on Cameo, an app where celebrities can send messages to fans, and which was obtained by Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper, is not known. Reportedly Rogers’ spokesperson said the message had been shared with Edwards “as a practical joke”.What was clear to all in the Canadian business community was the reference to a vicious family fight for the country’s biggest wireless carrier that has shocked and enthralled the country in equal measure. As Alexandra Posadzki recounts in Rogers V. Rogers, it is a story that has seen siblings go into battle against each other, as well as more humdrum perceived instances of greed, debauchery, betrayals and personal vengeance and courtroom dramas — all initially brought to light by a highly publicised pocket dial. At one point the saga threatened to bring down the entire Rogers telecoms empire. That would have been an ignominious end to one of the greatest chapters in Canadian corporate history. The rise of Rogers Communications, founded in Toronto in 1960, is largely attributed to Ted Rogers, the company’s second-generation leader and a risk-taker who invested early in cable television and cellular networks. This transformed the group into a giant with interests from television distribution to sports franchises. But in the wake of Ted’s death in 2008, his children — Edward and his sisters Lisa, Melinda and Martha — struggled to take control of the family empire, cycling through chief executives and nearly botching a planned takeover of rival Shaw Communications. Posadzki, a journalist for the Globe and Mail, is adept at excavating the interpersonal travails seeping out of a corporation trying its hardest to maintain a stoic public face. One cringing case involves Edward’s ploy to usurp Joe Natale, a telecoms industry veteran who his mother and sisters wanted for chief executive. This comes undone after, courtesy of that pocket dial, Natale overhears a private telephone conversation between Edward and the Rogers executive he plans to have installed as chief executive instead. Natale and the Rogers sisters try to stop Edward, but he persists in ousting Natale.When the firing arrives before Canada’s supreme court, the judge discards pages of evidence that pertain to “family squabbles”, which she derides as irrelevant but “an interesting backdrop to this dispute that would be more in keeping with a Shakespearean drama”.The siblings continue to fight over Twitter (now X). Martha Rogers can’t keep herself from speculating about her brother’s Trump affiliations or his relationship with their father. “This is not how you conduct yourself if you’re a serious group of people,” comments one Rogers executive, in an echo of a Logan Roy line of TV dialogue.Serious or not, Edward ultimately emerged victorious. The acquisition of Shaw went through in 2023, creating a corporation now worth nearly C$30bn ($24bn). “There was, after all, no longer any ambiguity about who was in control of Rogers Communications,” Posadzki writes. Yet, while he remains at the helm of the family business, all the feuding came at a considerable cost to his actual family life.Rogers V. Rogers finds resonance in a moment of collective fixation with “eat the rich” media, in films such as Saltburn, The Menu and Glass Onion, and television series such as The White Lotus and Succession. Those are all works of fiction, yet as the Rogers family saga shows, the real-world versions can be more shocking.Rogers V. Rogers: The Battle for Control of Canada’s Telecom Empire by Alexandra Posadzki McClelland & Stewart £22.98/$29.22, 416 pages Join our online book group on Facebook at FT Books Café and subscribe to our podcast Life and Art wherever you listen
