Vancouver-based businessman Jim Pattison is Canada’s richest person.
The car dealer, media magnate, grocer and outdoor advertiser stole the top spot on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index Tuesday after new information revealed that David K.R. Thomson, an heir to the Thomson media empire, owns a smaller stake in his family’s investment company than previously reported.
That discovery also put B.C. resident Sherry Brydson on the list as the richest woman in the country.
Pattison’s namesake conglomerate, the Jim Pattison Group, has dozens of businesses that together awarded him an estimated personal fortune of $9.5 billion.
That came as news to Pattison this week. “I haven’t done the numbers, so I really don’t know,” Pattison said in a Monday telephone interview with Bloomberg. “I never pay attention to that.”
What is not news to Pattison is the scale and scope of the collection of business lines that feed his coffers.
Pattison’s business holdings all began with a Pontiac Buick car dealership in 1961, according to the group’s corporate information. By the end of the decade, his business-lines grew to include radio and newspaper companies, a grocery store and an advertising company.
Through the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s, his holdings in those key fields grew to include dozens of companies, as well as new assets in shipping, fishing and finance.
After the turn of the millennium, he expanded into packaging and entertainment. The group boasted sales of more than $7.5 billion in 2012 — the fruit of more than 35,000 employees working at 470 locations across the world. It dubs itself the second-largest private company in Canada.
The Bloomberg estimate of Pattison’s $9.5-billion personal fortune exceeds a recent Canadian Business magazine estimate that put him at about $7.4 billion. He owns a corporate jet and a 45-metre luxury yacht, Nova Spirit, which is often moored in Vancouver’s Coal Harbour. But he is also a generous benefactor, having donated millions — mostly to hospitals. In 1999, Pattison gave $20 million to Vancouver General Hospital for a prostate research centre, and in 2011 a $5-million donation to Surrey Memorial Hospital for an outpatient care and surgery centre.
For five years in the 1980s, Pattison was in the public eye daily as the chairman of Vancouver’s highly successful world’s fair, Expo 86. He was paid a dollar a year for his services.
Thomson, the man who previously held top spot on Bloomberg’s list, lost footing in the most recent ranking on information from a person familiar with the Thomson family’s finances who asked not to be identified because the company is closely held.
He has a net worth of $4 billion, according to the Bloomberg ranking, which had attributed the entire Thomson family fortune to him since its inception in March 2012.
Thomson owns about 14 per cent of Woodbridge, the Ontario-based firm that manages the family’s assets, notable among them a 55 per cent stake in Thomson Reuters Corp., the world’s largest financial data company.
In addition to his stake in Woodbridge, Thomson owns Osmington, a commercial real estate developer, a collection of John Constable paintings and a minority interest in the Winnipeg Jets hockey team.
Brydson — a cousin of Thomson’s and the richest woman in Canada — landed on the list at No. 3. Brydson owns at least 23 per cent of Woodbridge.
Through Westerkirk Capital, her Toronto-based family office, she also owns a turboprop manufacturer on Vancouver Island, the Moose FM radio network in Ontario, and a hotel developer in Nova Scotia. Together, the low-profile heiress has a fortune valued at $6.5 billion, according to the Bloomberg ranking, making her the richest woman in Canada.
Brydson lives in a home overlooking the Strait of Juan de Fuca in Victoria.
“Most people don’t know she exists,” Trevor Cole, a novelist and journalist who has written about the family, said in a phone call from his Toronto office. “People who read the paper know the name Thomson and know that they are rich people, but beyond that they have no sense of them.”
Brydson, whose age couldn’t be confirmed, is one of six members of the Thomson family who have never appeared on an international wealth ranking. She and four of her first cousins are the first Canadian women to be identified as billionaires, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Galen Weston, whose grocery and retail fortune is valued at $8.7 billion, sits at second spot on the Bloomberg ranking.
Pattison's business empire
The Pattison Group’s business lines stretch across the North American landscape. Here are some of its more recognizable brands and industries:
• Outdoor advertising
• Overwaitea Foods, including Save-On-Foods, Urban Fare, Western Family brands and others
• Buy-Low Foods, including Nesters Market and others
• SunRype fruit beverages and snacks
• Ocean Brands, the second-largest canned seafood brand in Canada
• Canadian Fishing Company, including Gold Seal canned seafood and B.C.’s largest company fishing fleet
• Western Family food brands
• 30 FM radio and three TV stations in Alberta and B.C.
• Auto sales and leasing across 11 brands including Toyota, Lexus, Subaru, Hyundai, Volvo, Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge
• Guinness World Records
• Ripley Entertainment
• Westshore coal export terminals
• Styrofoam and other disposable food packaging
• Softwood lumber company Canfor
• Four Everything Wine locations in B.C. and Alberta
