The Magna page marking Mr. Stronach’s 1971 chairman appointment with an undated picture, has been deleted. Screenshot captured using perma.cc and verified with Wayback Machine.Supplied
Frank Stronach founded Magna International Inc. in Toronto in the 1950s and was, variously, the company’s chairman, top executive and controlling shareholder until leaving in 2012.
But you wouldn’t know it looking at Magna’s website.
While Mr. Stronach faces sex-crime charges, the auto parts company has mostly scrubbed his name and image from its online historical timeline, deleting at least four photos of him and at least two references to him.
The changes to the Our History section of Magna’s website were made sometime after June 25, according to an internet archive service, the Wayback Machine.
Mr. Stronach, 92, was charged on June 3 with five criminal counts, including rape and forcible confinement, involving three female complainants. He was charged on June 26 with eight more sex offences. After more complainants came forward, Mr. Stronach faces a total of 18 charges involving 13 alleged victims. The alleged offences date between 1977 and 2024.
Mr. Stronach, through his lawyer Leora Shemesh, has said he is not guilty and will fight the charges at trial, a date for which has not been set. Ms. Shemesh did not respond to two e-mails with questions for this story.
Magna spokeswoman Tracy Fuerst declined to comment. “We are not granting interviews on any topics related to Mr. Stronach,” she said.
The deleted pictures of Mr. Stronach include: two of him at his tool and die shop in the early days; one marking his appointment to the chairman role in 1971; and another at the New York Stock exchange in 1992, when Magna stock began trading there. To confirm the previous presence of the photos, The Globe and Mail used two web archive services, the Wayback Machine and Perma.cc, developed and maintained by Harvard University.
“Obviously somebody is trying to reduce the association [with Mr. Stronach],” said Alan Middleton, a retired marketing professor at York University’s Schulich School of Business, “although it would be difficult to do because he is the founder.”
For a story published on Oct. 19, The Globe spoke with four women who worked for Magna or one of the entities Mr. Stronach owned. They detailed encounters they say they had with Mr. Stronach and each involved company resources. This included the use of company suites or properties, and in some cases, staff who they believe have questions to answer about their role.
Ms. Shemesh said in September Mr. Stronach maintains his innocence.
The Globe also sought to contact every living director who sat on the board at the time of the allegations when Mr. Stronach was at Magna, to ask about what, if anything, they knew. Few responded.
Mr. Stronach in 2010 agreed to sell his controlling shares in Magna for about $1-billion in cash and other benefits, and left his chairman’s post in 2012. That same year, he published an autobiography entitled, The Magna Man. Since then, he has maintained a public profile, lecturing at University of Toronto, heading an Austrian political party and feuding in court with his daughter, Belinda Stronach, among other things.
Indeed, Magna and Mr. Stronach are closely linked. Magna’s headquarters in Aurora sits at the end of Stronach Blvd. and abuts the sprawling Stronach family compound, where Mr. Stronach and other family members live. The Stronach Aurora Recreation Complex is just across the road.
Professor Sibo Chen, an expert in crisis communications at Toronto Metropolitan University, said companies that face potentially damaging publicity have two choices: stay quiet and hope the impact is limited; or attempt to take control of the narrative by actively putting out the company’s position.
Magna appears to have adopted the latter tack, he said.
“I think that there is a very clear effort try to minimize the impact,” Prof. Chen said, noting the company has not issued a press release on the case nor addressed it on social media. (Magna’s 2018 post on X congratulating Mr. Stronach, with a picture of him, on his appointment to the Automotive Hall of Fame has not been deleted.)
Magna has, however, responded by e-mail to reporters’ questions. Shortly after Mr. Stronach was charged, Magna said in an e-mail to The Globe that he “has had no affiliation with Magna” for more than a decade. In October, Magna told The Globe it responded to police inquiries by launching an internal investigation for historical records, hired two law firms and is co-operating with authorities.