Big-League Deal

The biggest individual fortune yet made in Alberta oil grew bigger last week. Eric Lafferty Harvie, 63, a Calgary lawyer whose oil earnings to date are estimated at more than $120 million, sold control of his Western Leaseholds Ltd. for an undisclosed price. The buyer was Compagnie Financiere Beige des Petroles (Petrofina), a Belgian company with worldwide holdings which is rapidly building and buying its way into a top position in Canada.

Petrofina did not move into Canada until 1950, after Alberta's oil boom was well under way. Since then the company has spent millions to build refineries and filling stations, and to buy up Alberta oil lands. Western Leaseholds is one of Alberta's soundest companies, with 160 producing wells and drilling rights on some 2,400,000 acres of oil land. The deal was fabulously profitable for Lawyer Harvie. More than 20 years ago, a bankrupt client gave him the then-worthless rights to the best part of the land in payment of a legal fee. Harvie cannily held them until they yielded a fortune.

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