[2] The Reichman(n)s were originally from the small town of Beled, Hungary, but the ambitious Samuel Reichmann moved the family to Vienna, Austria, in 1928 where he became a successful merchant.
[3] He and his wife Renée had six children: During the Second World War, the family fled first to Paris, France, and then to the neutral city of Tangier, Morocco, in the 1950s.
Renée became a renowned humanitarian aiding victims of the Holocaust, arranging food parcels to be delivered through the Spanish Red Cross to concentration camps such as Theresienstadt and Auschwitz-Birkenau.
[4][5] Despite the financial success of life in Tangier the family left to avoid the turbulence of Moroccan independence from the French protectorate.
In 1981, they bought Abitibi-Price Inc, the world's largest newspaper producer, for $502 million; and in 1985, they acquired the majority interest in Gulf Canada Resources, in the second-largest takeover in Canadian history.
[9][10] In 1997, Albert's son Philip Reichmann and Paul’s son-in-law Frank Hauer relaunched the company as O&Y Properties Inc. and bought back First Canadian Place.