Eleanor McCain has gone to the New Brunswick Court of King’s Bench hoping to gain permission to sell her inheritance to outsiders.
Her siblings have threatened to shun her from the family if she does, yet she said they have only made low-ball offers for her share of inheritance in the world’s largest French-fries business.
It is not the first family fracture. Her father and uncle fought over the company. Wallace left Harrison and bought Maple Leaf Foods Inc. and installed his son as president and chief executive officer.
Based on the value of publicly traded peers, the private company is worth about $20 billion.
McCain Foods with its head office in Florenceville, N.B., employs more than 20,000 employees people 160 countries and has annual sales of $16 billion.
McCain Foods, the operating business, is owned by the holding company, MFGI. Ms. McCain, a professional musician, has been trying to cash out of MFGI since April, 2025. She plans use her inheritance to back charities and her own business ventures.
Wallace and Harrison McCain, sons of a potato farmer, opened their first frozen fry factory in 1957. They built a global business, then feuded over leadership in the early 1990s, prior to their deaths in 2011 and 2004, respectively.
Since 1995, McCain Foods has hired outside executives to run the company.
Control of MFGI is now shifting to 55 second- and third-generation McCain heirs.
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