Wilson McGregor of the N.F.A.
Wilson McGregor was the Administrator of the Manitoba branch of the National Financial Administration in the 1930s.
Like all of the confederation-level N.F.A. administrators, McGregor worked to expand the number of financings his branch granted, and disregarded the growing number of business failures among the branch's investees. All of the N.F.A. branches were short of capital, but the Manitoba office was in particularly bad shape. Thus, when the financial world received a shock on 24 February 1936 when Kramer Associates announced it was moving its headquarters from San Francisco to the Philippines, the Manitoba branch was particularly exposed.
On 14 March 1936 McGregor informed Minister of Finance Ezra Clarkson that he would be unable to meet interest payments on Manitoba N.F.A. bonds that were due that day. Clarkson was able to rush Treasury funds to North City to ensure that McGregor's bondholders were satisfied, but word of the shortfall leaked to the press, and by nightfall the news had been broadcast throughout the Confederation of North America. Panic struck the C.N.A.'s financial community, and on the following day the North City office of the N.F.A. was forced to close its doors. By 17 March all the other confederation-level branches had also shut down.
Sobel states that McGregor probably deserved much of the blame for the situation, although he admits that the Manitoba administrator was no more derelict in his duties than the others. In fact, had McGregor tried to scale back his financings, he probably would have been removed from office. Presumably McGregor was removed from office after the Manitoba N.F.A. failed.
Wilson McGregor does not have an entry in Sobel's index.
Sobel's source for Wilson's McGregor's role in the Manitoba N.F.A.'s failure is Jack Buchanan's The Financial Crisis of 1936 and Its Causes (London, 1966).