Established in 1988 by Calgary entrepreneur James S Kinnear, it was one of the largest of the Canadian royalty trusts ("Canroys"), with a market capitalization of US$4.12 billion at the end of 2007.

[1][2] Pengrowth's assets are in the Western Canada sedimentary basin, a geologic region which has a long history of productivity in crude oil and natural gas.

The income that the well derived from selling its commodity was distributed to shareholders as monthly dividends, after covering costs associated with infrastructure maintenance, debt payments and management fees.

Pengrowth was unique from similar royalty trusts, such as Enerplus, in that it delivered monthly, rather than quarterly, dividends and it kept its management as a separate company.

[9] In 2001 the company, along with Emera, acquired an 8.4% stake in the Sable Offshore Energy Project as the Nova Scotia government sought to divest itself from its oil and gas operations.

[17] Despite several corrections being made to the amount of Sable's proven gas reserves over the next few years,[18] Pengrowth continued to invest there, buying out Emera and acquiring an undersea pipeline and processing infrastructure.

[26] However, the company suffered its first major setback, as it began a long decline, with the federal government's October 31 announcement that it would begin, effective 2011, taxing royalty trust distributions causing its share price to fall to $19 in November.

[27][28] The stock price would peak again only at $14, in Spring 2011, just before their Judy Creek facility suffered a spill of approximately 1.9-million litres of produced water and oil caused by stress corrosion cracking.

The company had been transitioning its main focus from acquiring and extending the life of aging assets to developing its own long-term oil-producing facility.

[32] Having become overly burdened with debt, it began selling assets to develop a steam-assisted gravity drainage project near Lindbergh, Alberta, in the Cold Lake oil sands.

However, commodity prices did not rebound as expected and the company continued to sell properties until its only remaining major assets were the Lindbergh facility and the natural gas infrastructure in Groundbirch, British Columbia, though it had repaid $1.3 billion of its debt.

[40] The company was partially successful in its efforts to restructure or extend its debt but had to solicit offers to sell or merge the remainder of the business.