Accurso quits the construction business

According to CBC’s French-language service, Tony Accurso, Quebec’s construction magnate is leaving the business.

Accurso wrote to his employees and stated that it’s time to leave the company in the hands of younger and more energetic people and also apologized for the public controversy related to the company.

Accurso believes that the company will be better off without him and that he had no choice be to leave. In an interview with La Presse newspaper, Accruso described his over 1 billion-dollar company as the jewel of Quebec.

A consulting firm has been hired to help chart the company’s fiuture. Ideas of a merger, sale or splitting the company up have not been pushed aside.

In the last five decades, Accurso and the companies he is connected to have aided in almost every major construction project in Montreal.

According to CBC, Although Accurso has denied all allegations, he has been the target of Montreal’s anti-corruption squad and his name has been raised at the Charbonneau commission investigating allegations of corruption in the construction industry.

There has been quite a bit of controversy around the Accurso name, as companies controlled by his family have been convicted of tax fraud and had their licenses suspend.

Not only that, but Accurso was charged with fraud, conspiracy, influence peddling, breach of trust and two counts of defrauding the government last April. He was also arrested in early August on charges linked to a multimillion-dollar tax-evasion conspiracy.

In recent years, Accurso’s daughter has been handling much of the day-to-day running of the family business.