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In an email exchange with the Financial Post, Schulich — who once earned the nickname “the Sheriff” for his attention-grabbing costumed antics at mining company shareholder meetings — appeared to joke that he is now among the ten per cent-ers in the wealth department, having lost the one per cent status he held “B.P. — before Pengrowth.”

He did not disclose how many shares he owned in the oil and gas company, but his investment company Nevada Capital Corp. Ltd. issued a news release on May 15 saying he had increased his ownership in the energy company to 165 million shares. At that time, the stock was trading at 56 cents. The shares had slid to 20 cents apiece by the time Cona bid was announced last month, at which time Bloomberg data on stock holdings listed Nevada as Pengrowth’s largest shareholder with a 28.5 per cent stake.

Schulich had been buying Pengrowth stock since at least the fall of 2017, telling the Financial Post in an interview at that time that he was going “all in” on a bet that oil and gas prices would rise.

Last month, Pengrowth executives blamed the nickel-a-share sale price (which comes with a potential “contingent value payment”) on the significant decline in oil prices in 2014 that hit as the firm was embarking on the largest capital project in its history.

Pete Sametz, Pengrowth’s chief executive, told shareholders in November that the sale was the best option after efforts to arrange ongoing funding — a difficult task both for the company and participants in the Canadian oil and gas industry in general — were unsuccessful.