Who Owns Canadians: Adventures In Capitalism
Some months ago I looked up who the richest Canadians were and what they were invested in. If you have ever wondered what the Oligarch Index would look like, have no fear, I’ll share with you the results of my search.
The one you might be most familiar with is the Westons who own Loblaws. However the Westons don’t actually own a majority of it, rather they own 63% of a publicly traded corporation called George Weston which itself owns 47% of Loblaws. Keeping to the strategy of creating russian nesting dolls of companies to basically retain control over companies you effectively only really own a quarter of they have also split off the real estate of the grocery stores into Choice Properties REIT, which is majority owned by Loblaws. Thus the Weston family controls this REIT despite really only owning an eighth of it.
George Weston TSE:WN
Loblaws Companies Limited TSE:L
Choice Properties TSE:CHP.UN
On the other side of the pond, the Westons also have another top order shell called Wittington Investments, which is 80% owned by Garfield Weston Foundation, which is a charity (or “charity” for tax purposes if you feel it more appropriate, as they still retain control over it). The other 20% is owned directly by individual members of the Weston family. The main holding of Wittington Investments is Associated British Foods for a majority stake of 54.5% , and some department stores in the UK and Ireland. Associated British Foods is a component of the British Stock Exchange Index the FTSE100. Much like Loblaws, they also own clothing brand/stores, and they also have a monopsony (a situation where there is one buyer rather than a monopoly where there is one seller) where they process the entire Sugar Beet crop of the UK with British Sugar which supplies about half of the UK’s sugar consumption.
Associated British Foods LSE:ABF
Next lets move on to the richest man in Canada. Can you guess? Hint he is literally a British Lord.
Okay all guesses? It is David Kenneth Roy Thomson, 3rd Baron Thomson of Fleet. The descendants of the late Baron of Fleet own the Woodbridge Corporation which is itself the owner of 62.35% of Thomson Reuters. The Thomson portion is difficult to explain, as they provide “business services”, but it seems like that consists of providing information for legal and tax matters. Might be kind of like the Bloomberg of Canada. Reuters was a British media company before it was acquired. How this particular guy became the richest person in Canada and not another member of the family is that he actually doesn’t even like having to run the family business and instead has started an independent real estate empire. Pinning down exactly what that entails is difficult, but his investment activities are run by a Toronto Hedge Fund called Morgan Bay Capital, and the real estate empire is called Osmington Incorporated. Osmington has sold some of its properties to the Canada Pension Plan, and seems to have interests in “precision agriculture” at FarmersEdge (which has since become publicly listed on March 5, 2021 after I originally made the write up), and Osmington is a partner in the group that owns the Winnipeg Jets. He is not the richest man in Canada entirely because of Thomson Reuters, but it certainly contributes to it, and what billionaire doesn’t own a media conglomerate or two?
Thomson Reuters TSE:TRI
FarmersEdge TSE:FDGE
Now Galen Weston is the 3rd richest Canadian, and David Thomson is the 1st, so who is on second? Tsai’s on second. Joseph Tsai. Taiwanese born co-founder and Executive Vice-Chairman of Alibaba. At 13 he was sent to a prep school in New Jersey, and eventually went to his father’s alma mater at Yale. He started his career as a tax associate at a New York law firm and eventually became an attorney following in his father’s footsteps. From there however he eventually left for Hong Kong and became involved in Asian private equity, which resulted in him meeting Jack Ma, where he was so impressed that he quit his investment firm to join in the founding of Alibaba as the only western-educated and non-technical founder where he served the dual role of Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer. He was vital due to the cross-pacific nature of Alibaba’s business model and being the only one with experience in venture capital and law. He is the second largest individual shareholder of Alibaba behind only Jack Ma. Beyond that he also bought the Brooklyn Nets off a Russian billionaire, as well as being the owner of several other sports team like in football and lacrosse which he was the avid player while in prep school and at Yale.
Alibaba NYSE:BABA
He is a dual Hong Kong and Canadian citizen. You would think he would be American given most of the time he spent in the west was in America but when you are rich obtaining Canadian citizenship is easy and it provides most of the same benefits as American citizenship. Controversially when on the question of the NBA and Hong Kong, which is an intersection particularly relevant to him, he weighed in stating that many Chinese were angry over tweets in support of Hong Kong because they sounded like support for separatism, which is a no go for China.
Taiwanese politics is a bit complex, the KMT, the right-wing on the island, believes in a United China, its just that this One united China ought to be under the KMT, strong, free, and independent, but ultimately friendly with the West, in the vein of Sun Yat-Sen who was also western educated. It is generally the left-wing DPP which is both more independent of the Taiwanese business community and also thinks of itself as independent from China. Taiwan’s biggest trade partner is China, and the KMT sees no issue with this as they see it as business being done from a province of china that is free from occupation doing business with other provinces of china which are just temporarily under Communist Party of China occupation.
The business community loves the One Country Two Systems because it lets them have their cake and eat it too, but since China is the most important trade partner for Hong Kong and Taiwan, they are torn when it comes to the CCP power grabbing the two systems into one system. For the business community being one country is more important for the bottom line than the two systems, so while they are against the power grab, they are also against separatism. This is difficult to understand but many Chinese still see it as a United China that is still in a protracted civil war that has just been on pause for decades, the same way people in Korea see the Korean War as a protracted civil war that never ended rather than a war between countries. They want their freedom, but they also want their country to remain united. Ultimately this is not too dissimilar from the powerful Quebec Federalist business families which are generally the historical owners of the Liberal Party who oppose Quebec sovereignty and want a united Canada even if they support francophone rights within Canada
Which brings us to the Desmarais. Paul Desmarais was the fourth wealthiest person in Canada before he died in 2013, and his family is considered the seventh on the list currently. The Desmarais Family Residual Trust controls Pansolo which itself owns about 80% of the voting shares of the Power Corporation of Canada, but 60% of those votes come from owning almost all of the preferred voting shares which give 10 votes, while they own 11% of the regular shares which translates to another 20% of the voting power.
Power Corp is itself also a fan of complicated ownership structures so I will do my best to explain it all. The largest holding is 67% of Great West Life insurance and 62% of IGM financial, both of which also have subsidiaries who operate in the United States. They also have a Partnership ownership of Group Brussels Lambert with Frere Bourgeois who was the richest man in Belgium while he was alive. As a result of these complicated ownership structures, with partner Frere Bourgeois they actually control a French Materials company called Imerys, and own minority stakes in Adidas and Pernod Ricard, and the list does not stop there, as it also has stakes in LarfargeHolcim which owns aggregate sites for construction, and Ontex which makes personal hygiene products, so its holdings run the gamut of general stuff you generally don’t think about but is essential.
Overall the European holdings are quite diversified in many industries, and its North American holdings in Wealth/Retirement Management and Life Companies functions as a diversified asset pool due to the nature of how life insurance companies use the premiums to invest so they can eventually cover the payouts down the line. They also own wealth management companies in China which makes it globally diversified and sector diversified. Through the complicated ownership structure it owns WealthSimple in part via Power Corp itself, but also through their majority stake in IGM financial. They also have a renewable energy division where they live up to the “Power” name, and beyond renewable energy they also have a 60% stake in Lumenpulse an LED manufacturer, and a 44% stake in Lion Electric and electric school bus manufacturer.
Power Corp TSE:POW
Great West Life TSE:GWO
IGM Financial TSE:IGM
Group Brussels Lambert EBR:GBLB
Power Corp is likely the closest you will get to the concept of the revolving door of politicians in business. All our recent Francophone prime ministers have been involved, mostly Liberal leaders like Chretien, Martin, and Pierre Trudeau, but also Brain Mulroney, and many Premiers of Ontario and Quebec as well. If there was ever a company that made the concept of “the Laurentian Elite” that run Canada clear, it is Power Corp.
The guy who owns Rogers is next on our line of Oligarchs. Rogers is similar to Power Corp in that they attempt to have voting shares and non-voting shares so the family can control the company while not actually owning the whole thing.
Rogers TSE: RCI.A preferred voting shares
Rogers TSE: RCI.B non-voting shares for us plebs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Canadians_by_net_worth
You can look at the full list here but I’m going to stop as Saputo as they are the dreaded Milk Cartel of the Bernier’s nightmares
Saputo TSE:SAP
Rapid Fire Round
Garret Camp NYSE:UBER
Irvings (Private, Oil, New Brunswick)
Richardson (Private, Agricultural and Food Production)
Jim Pattison (Private, British Columbia Conglomerate, fun fact owns Guinness World Records)
Jeffery Skoll (NASDAQ:EBAY, Participant a privately owned film production studio)
Richard Li (Hong Kong Telecom, SEHK:8)
Azireli Family (Israeli Real Estate, TLV:AZRG, fun fact the Azireli Towers used to be the tallest buildings in Israel. They also have a pavilion named after him in Carleton University)
Carlo Fidani (Mississauga based real estate)
Bernard Sherman (Privately held Pharmaceutical company Apotex)
McCain family (Beyond McCain foods, Wallace McCain after being ousted from McCain by his brother Harrison purchased Maple Leaf Foods together with the Ontario Teacher’s Pension Plan … somehow lets not question it. TSE:MFI)
David Cheriton (Google NASDAQ:GOOG, and Arista some computer networking company NYSE:ANET, a S&P500 component)
Alain Bouchard (Alimentation Couchetard, TSE:ATD.B for us plebs)
Daryl Katz (privately owned real estate company, owns the Edmonton Oilers)
Michael Lee-Chin (NCB Financial Group, a Jamaica based Caribbean conglomerate, JSE:NCBFG)
Tom Gaglardi (Owns the Dallas Stars and a privately held real estate company Northland Properties)
There are some people who are so mysterious they don’t even have wikipedia articles the Zekelman and Apostolopoulous families
Marc Scheinberg (Pokerstars, The Stars Group used to be publicly traded but it has been delisted)
