jim pattison yachts

Billionaire Jimmy Pattison is 94 and goes to work every day. What’s his secret?

He’s still overseeing an empire that spans eight industries (from coal terminals to grocery stores to novelty museums) and generates revenue of $14-billion a year

This article was published more than 1 year ago. Some information may no longer be current.

Evaan Kheraj/The Globe and Mail

There was a time, back in the 1960s, when Jimmy Pattison seemed to most Canadians like a magic trick. He was driven by unknown forces. “A jumping-bean of a man” is how one writer put it. One minute he was the owner of a car dealership, and practically the next, he was a “tycoon.” He’d bought an underachieving company selling outdoor illuminated signs and turned it into a conglomerate. A Vancouver newspaper called him a billionaire long before he’d actually achieved that status; it just seemed inevitable. By the mid-1980s he owned nearly 40 companies, all related to consumer goods or services, and still he wasn’t satisfied. He was the kind of rich man who owned a yacht luxurious enough to host Prince Charles and Princess Diana, yet still checked the coin-return boxes of every payphone he passed. The latest Forbes estimate puts his net worth at close to $15 billion, though he never took the Jim Pattison Group public, so it’s hard to know for sure. His value as an example of what any Canadian with an insatiable appetite for business success can achieve, however, might be immeasurable. We chatted via Zoom from his office in downtown Vancouver.

Okay, go ahead and shoot.

Great! Here’s my first question. You’re 94 years old, and you’re still CEO and chairman of the company you started about 60 years ago. Why are you working and not out on your yacht somewhere?

Well, first of all, because I owe the banks money. That’s a good start on it. But the reason I do what I do is ‘cause I haven’t found anything I like doing better. I like going to work every morning. In fact, when I get off this deal with you, I’m on my way to Saskatchewan, where we just built a new building for our John Deere dealership in Humboldt.

You once said, “You don’t have to be smart to make a lot of money, just as long as you’re not too stupid.” Is that true still?

If I said that, I don’t recall saying it. To make money, you have to find the opportunity, and then you have to execute.

Back when you started in the ‘60s, you had a Buick dealership and a radio station. Then all of a sudden you started buying a whole bunch of businesses. It was like you were struck by lightning. What triggered that?

What is that?

Young Presidents’ Organization. It was a deal, both in Canada and America, for people like me, that got together and had meetings.

You were inspired by YPO.

I was inspired. When I joined this organization, the B.C. group belonged to the American part of the organization. And the Americans tend to be very aggressive, in many cases, in business. And when I saw the vision these people had, with no money, it gave me the opportunity to grow.

You once said that what held people back was a lack of courage. Where did you find your courage?

Well, I can tell you, the Royal Bank loaned me $40,000, and I got started with a car dealership in Vancouver. That was my start. And so, I spent my whole life borrowing money, paying it back, and investing it in something that I had a rough idea I could make some money with. And some have worked, and some have not worked. (1)

Was there ever a time when your courage failed you?

That’s a very definite answer.

That doesn’t mean I didn’t make a lot of mistakes. Failures, I’ve had my share of those. But it was never because I was afraid to get up in the morning and try something new.

Since we’re talking about mistakes, do you want to tell me what you think your biggest mistake was?

I would say my biggest mistake was going into a high-tech deal I knew nothing about, with a bunch of people. I bought this company, and it was high tech, I didn’t understand the business, and the people were not competent. I probably paid a million and a half for it or something like that. I lost it all. That taught me a great lesson—to be sure I know a little bit about what I’m getting into.

If I were starting out right now and had my eye on making $1 billion, what advice would you give me?

Well, No. 1 is always be honest, no matter what. And if you’re borrowing money from the bank, you gotta have a good reason for where the money goes and why, and how you’re gonna pay it back. Work hard, be honest, and when you make a mistake, don’t try to prove you’re right.

Don’t keep hitting the nail with the same hammer. Just move on. If you find out you’re not a carpenter, quit and do something different.

I’m sorry to keep throwing your old quotes back at you, but you once said, “Deals are made in dark rooms and strange places.” Is that still true?

No. I don’t even remember that quote, if I said it. But usually when we were doing a deal, it would be a small little family business, and it could be in a farmhouse. It could be in a garage. It could be in a car. But it wouldn’t be in a fancy boardroom like I’m sitting in right now. The deals we do today involve more money and sophisticated people, and we usually have lawyers on both sides, and all of that.

As you were building your empire, a lot of people admired you. Was there a peer or business figure whom you admired?

There certainly was, and I can’t recall who they would be. There was one in Texas—I can’t remember his name today. And then there was a bunch of people, mostly Americans, that came from nothing.

Did you ever look up to Warren Buffett, as an investor?

Absolutely, Warren Buffett’s in a class all by himself.

You don’t see any similarities between you and him?

Oh, no. I’m a nothing compared to Warren Buffett. (2) Warren Buffett, by the way, sent me a picture one time, unsolicited, with a note written on it. And I got to know Warren Buffett. Now you’re talking to somebody that really knows what he’s doing.

Since the 1960s, you’ve been through a number of recessions. What is your opinion about where the economy is headed this year?

That we’ll get through it, and things will be fine.

Are you doing anything special to prepare for a possible recession?

We’re not doing anything special, but we’re cautious of being sure that we’re not over-leveraged, if things go wrong.

You used to make a distinction between business people in the West, and those in the East. You felt that westerners were more trustworthy. How do you feel these days?

I don’t recall ever saying that they’re more trustworthy. The people in the West, I have found, will take more chances than the people in the eastern part. They’re more risk takers than the people that I’ve dealt with in the eastern part of the U.S. or Canada.

Looking back, where would you rank Expo 86 on your list of accomplishments?

Well, the Expo turned out to be a success, and I was just one of the volunteers. We had hundreds and hundreds of volunteers in British Columbia that worked in the World’s Fair for nothing, and I was just one of them.

Weren’t you pretty instrumental in making things happen?

Well, I was running the fair, and it was my job. But you don’t do it alone. You hire people that contributed, and we had a lot of support from the B.C. government, the Canadian government. It turned out to be successful, but the government of Canada and British Columbia were the people that deserved the credit. (3)

Did your Expo experience ever inspire thoughts of running for political office?

It did. One night at nine o’clock, my phone rang at home, and the party that was in power at the time offered me the job as premier.

Oh, really?

I don’t even remember telling anybody that story before. But Maureen, my assistant, remembers. (4) They called at nine o’clock—a lady by the name of Grace McCarthy. She was a cabinet minister and said, “Jimmy, the premier’s gonna be retiring, and we’d like you to take the job on.” I remember it very well. It was at night, and I was on a speakerphone, and my wife heard the call. “Oh, Jimmy,” she said, “you should do that.” And I slept on it, and decided, no. I was gonna stay a businessman.

And you never considered it again?

I have, ‘cause I’ve had opportunities two or three times, to go into politics. But I decided that I would stick with trying to make money. And not for the interest of making money for money’s sake, but it’s what I like doing.

Looking back at your career, what is your proudest achievement?

I’ve never thought of it. But I got married in ‘51, and I’m still married. Same wife. (5) And this is 70-some-odd years later. I would say probably my biggest accomplishment was staying married, working at night, travelling all over the deal, and still having the same wife when I get home tonight. I got married in 1951 in Moose Jaw, Sask.

What’s your favourite part of doing business?

Going to work in the morning. Usually the two things I deal with are the problems, and the opportunities.

You’ve said many times that you never had any interests or hobbies outside of business, and you seemed proud of that. Is that still true?

I’ve never had any hobbies, but I’ve had outside interests. I spent years playing the trumpet. At one time, I played in the most famous boys’ band in Canada, and they travelled all over the United States, England. And then I learned to play the piano a little bit, so then I played in the church orchestra, and I played in the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, and I played in bands at UBC. I had a good time with that. (6)

What kind of music did you like playing?

I was basically raised on gospel music. But anything that—”Home on the Range”—anything that was popular. I learned to play without music, although I took music lessons for years, but I basically learned to play by ear. That was easy for me.

When you think about all the deals you’ve done, what was the best one?

The best one was the first one. I bought a General Motors franchise that was a three-pump gas station, and a two-car showroom. The dealership was not doing well, and the owner wanted out, and General Motors gave me the opportunity. I needed $40,000, and the Royal Bank loaned it to me, ‘cause I didn’t have a dime. And I went into business, and that’s the best deal I ever did.

How big a role did luck play in your success?

I’m saying luck.

Well, I’m saying timing. I would say that I’ve been very fortunate with timing, because I didn’t start anything when the whole world was crashing in a depression. It’s the key, ‘cause I’ve always been highly leveraged. Borrowing everything I could, up to the last few years, where we have a lot more of our own money, if you like. So, it’s been the Canadian banks and the American banks. I wouldn’t be here today, talking to you, if it wasn’t for the bank system, and two or three of the managers that took the risk on me.

You’ve been asked many times about your succession plan. The fact that you are still in charge, at 94, suggests you never got around to making one.

You are dead wrong. We’ve had a succession plan ever since I got to 75 or so. I’ve always had somebody coming along that was ready to be a successor, including today. (7)

Do you want to name that person?

No, I’d prefer not to name him, because I may change my mind, if it doesn’t work out.

I think I know what you’ll say to this, but I’ll ask anyway. Is a life spent acquiring businesses and building wealth an attempt to pursue happiness?

No. I like what I do. It’s been something that has turned out well for me. Listen, I’ve made more mistakes than anybody I know, but you don’t live with them. If you make a lot of decisions, you’re gonna make mistakes, usually. But on balance, it’s turned out okay.

I really enjoyed our conversation. Thank you for your time.

Well, Trevor, thank you for your time. I appreciate the opportunity.

1. In 1969, when Pattison was buying company after company, a Vancouver businessman who was asked about him said: “He’s so efficient he scares me.”

2. Buffett’s net worth is roughly $150 billion, a little over 10 times Pattison’s.

3. The World’s Fair, whose theme was transportation and communi-cation, drew 22 million visitors—triple the number who attended Expo 84 in Louisiana.

4. Pattison’s longtime assistant, Maureen Chant, confirms that Grace McCarthy, a powerful cabinet minister in B.C.’s Social Credit Party, did ask Jimmy to run for premier to replace Bill Bennett in 1986 or ‘87.

5. His wife’s name is Mary. They have three children—two daughters and a son, Jim Jr., who is president of Ripley Entertainment.

6. Pattison played with The Kitsilano Boys Band. And according to Chant, Pattison did indeed play trumpet with the VSO for several years.

7. There was speculation that former B.C. premier Glen Clark would take over—he was president for 10 years. But he stepped down in January, a move Pattison said was in the works for a long time. The new president is Ryan Barrington-Foote, a 45-year-old accountant.

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The 2019 Top 100 All-Stars: Jim Pattison Group

The conglomerate that Pattison launched in 1961 remains B.C.’s biggest private company by revenue in our latest Top 100 ranking

Almost six decades into his business career, Jimmy Pattison shows no sign of stepping away from the diversified multibillion-dollar empire he built. What keeps him going?

(hint: it isn’t yachts and vacation homes).

It’s always risky to judge a book by its cover—or a man by his plaid jacket. But everything you need to know about 90-year-old Jimmy Pattison is evident, instantly, in the grip of his handshake.

You know what handshakes are like. Some are too weak, some too strong—some people hold on way too long. And, among men over 80, even the most robust usually offer something tentative—fragile bones wrapped in papery skin you wouldn’t dare squeeze. But the five-foot-six-inch Jimmy Pattison still takes your hand with the strength and confidence of a 32-year-old car salesman. The grasp is rock solid—not a hint too pushy—and the minute you feel it, you know two things absolutely: first, you could do a deal with this man; and second, he’s in amazingly good health.

We’re looking out from the 18th floor of the Shaw Tower on Cordova Street, admiring Vancouver’s harbour and the North Shore Mountains from the head office of the Jim Pattison Group (holding steady at No. 3 on this year’s Top 100 list). The reception room is like a cluttered study, filled with the awards Pattison has won, the books people have given him and, in the corner, models of every private aircraft he’s owned since he brought the first Learjet to Canada in 1969. When I mention his age, he shrugs and says: “Ninety. Well, I never thought about it, but it showed up.”

And it’s barely slowed him down. “I travel all the time in my job,” he says. “Nothing’s really changed for me. I try to work some part of every day. I come in early in the morning, and I go home a bit earlier than I used to—at 5:15 or 5:20.” Every night he’s in town, Pattison says, he takes his wife, Mary (née Hudson), out to dinner. They met at Bible camp when they were both 13 and have been married for 68 years. So, seriously, nothing’s changed.

Yet the private conglomerate that Pattison began to assemble in 1961 with the purchase of a General Motors Co. car dealership (“a two-car showroom and a three-pump gas station”) now employs 46,000 people in 541 locations around the world and reported revenue of $10.6 billion in fiscal 2018.

There’s no making sense of Pattison’s mix of businesses. In addition to the car lots (25 locations, 12 brands, 24,000 vehicles sold in 2018), he owns grocery stores (Save-On-Foods, Buy-Low, Quality Foods), coal terminals (Westshore), radio stations (Jim Pattison Broadcast Group), sign companies (Pattison Outdoor Advertising) and theme parks (Ripley Entertainment). And befitting a company that also owns the Guinness World Records operation, every Pattison asset comes with a superlative. His massively expanded Canfor Corp. (No. 12 on this year’s list) is now the largest global producer of sustainable forest products. Canadian Fishing Co. annually harvests more than 100 million pounds.

No matter who it is, you phone back

Asked what ties all these operations together, Pattison says only, “One thing’s led to another.” He seems to be the polar opposite of the modern corporate raider, the type who snaps up companies, strips their value and sends all the jobs to China. Rather, Pattison Group president and COO Glen Clark says that Jimmy’s strategy is: “Buy, keep management and grow the company. We’ve been successful with that. We buy good operating businesses and try not to sell too many.”

Besides, Clark says, “We like the diversification. At any given time, one or two companies might be going through trouble; diversification gives us strength.” And as Canada’s second-largest privately held company, Clark says, they get to make, and stand by, long-term decisions. “Being private gives us the ability to look beyond the next quarter.”

Clark, who was B.C.’s New Democratic Party premier from 1996 to 1999, says Pattison is also an exemplary boss. “He’s patient, disciplined. He gives everyone a chance to do well. That’s why our average length of service is so high.”

This wasn’t always the Pattison reputation. Paul Grescoe, the as-told-to writer behind the 1987 book Jimmy: An Autobiography , confirmed then (and now) that, as a young entrepreneur, Pattison regularly sacked his poorest-performing salesman. (As Grescoe says, “They were all men in those days.”) But both Grescoe and Clark defend the practice, saying you’re not doing a failed commission salesperson any favour by keeping them in a job that will never pay. They say that Jimmy wasn’t punishing underachievers, he was doing them a kindness.

This, then, gets to an interesting aspect of Canada’s fifth-richest man ( Forbes says he’s worth $7.7 billion): Jim Pattison has no critics. Actually, that’s an overstatement. For example, there are many who resent the breadth of his influence in the B.C. fishery. But unlike most business moguls, Pattison has no horde of angry detractors waiting by the phone to say uncharitable things.

David Baines, the retired Vancouver Sun columnist who for decades tracked bad behaviour in the B.C. business community, says Pattison has escaped criticism on two counts. First, because the Pattison Group is privately held, “It’s very difficult for outsiders to scrutinize his deals.” Second, Baines says, Jimmy “always returns reporter phone calls. Reporters feel flattered when the top guy responds.”

Glen Clark (who’s also excellent about returning calls), says that’s true: “It’s a rule in our office: no matter who it is, you phone back.” But Clark offers another explanation for Pattison’s resilient reputation. “Jimmy’s so ethical. It sounds like I’m biased—and actually, I am biased!—but he really is. Jimmy always says, ‘Try not to do anything we wouldn’t want to see on the front page of the paper.’ He has a strong sense of values.”

The power of giving

This certainly seems to be expressed in Pattison’s philanthropy. The Jim Pattison  Foundation gives away millions—or tens of millions—every year. For example, in 2018, the foundation committed $75 million to the new St. Paul’s Hospital and $50 million to the now-state-of-the-art Jim Pattison Children’s Hospital in Saskatoon, where he was born. In the late 1990s, he gave what was then a head-snapping gift of $20 million to prostate cancer research in Vancouver, and he used that donation to leverage so much additional health-care money out of the provincial government to accelerate construction that the main building of Vancouver General Hospital is now known as the Jim Pattison Pavilion.

When I ask Pattison if these gifts gave him particular pleasure, he says, “Well, no. We’ve always—as most businesses do—given money to different causes.” But this may reflect modesty more than disinterest. As Grescoe reported in the Pattison biography, from his earliest days as a door-to-door garden seed salesboy in East Vancouver, Pattison has tithed: he’s given 10 percent of his income to charitable causes. But Clark says the boss doesn’t go looking for credit, even if other people insist on putting the Pattison name on libraries and buildings he has supported.

Really, it’s difficult to get Jim Pattison to admit that anything gives him as much of a thrill as just turning up for another day at the office. (“I like what I do. I don’t consider it work.”) One of his most famous indulgences is the 150-foot yacht Nova Spirit , which he bought in 1999 for US$25 million. If you stand close to the window, you can see it from the Pattison Group reception room, though Pattison himself is not one to gaze longingly at the view. “I don’t go out on the boat very often. We use it for entertaining customers, suppliers and special guests. But I don’t use it personally.” And, to be clear: he doesn’t fish.

He also doesn’t spend much time at the Rancho Mirage estate near Palm Springs that he bought in 1995 from Frank Sinatra. As with the boat: “We have meetings there. We bring customers there.” A cynic might wonder if Pattison is defending the tax deductibility of a holiday asset, but Grescoe says it’s a fair characterization of Jimmy’s passions. “The only extracurricular activity I ever saw that gave him pleasure was the trumpet. He really loved playing, and he was good. If he was going to take over someone’s company, he would take them out for a cruise and play the trumpet.”

As we are nearing the end of the interview, I ask Pattison about his plans for the future, to which he answers—without a hint of irony—”Oh, we’re just getting started.” Asked whether he’ll ever retire, he fairly snaps: “I hope not.”

Then, as I am about to leave, Pattison says, “Wait, you haven’t met Maureen,” and he turns us toward the office of Maureen Chant, the woman who has been his executive assistant for 56 of his 58 years in business. Chant is famous as Jimmy’s gatekeeper, a second and highly trusted set of eyes and ears. In a senior management group that is otherwise exclusively male, everyone acknowledges that she has always been the No. 2.

Sitting in her office, which is tucked in behind the reception area, Chant exudes confidence and efficiency, somehow appearing both warm and brusque at the same time. As we step through her door, she already knows who I am and why I am here, and she asks immediately if I got everything I needed. I say yes and ask: Is she ever going to retire? Chant pauses and looks to Jimmy, as if to check for an update, and then she says: “I hope not.”

As mentioned, the Pattison Group is a private company: you can’t buy shares. But if you could, I’d suggest that it would be on everybody’s “buy” list—as a long-term hold.

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Jim Pattison, nicknamed ‘Canada’s Warren Buffett,’ drives his own pickup truck

Canada's third-richest man is 90, but not ready to take it easy at the Vancouver headquarters of his empire. Instead, he's criss-crossing Alberta and Manitoba to check on his latest venture.

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Jim Pattison roars through rural Saskatchewan in his silver pickup truck, barreling down the prairie road that runs arrow-straight to the horizon. Tossed into the back seat is a sleeping bag and crimson pillow — the unlikely berth for Canada’s self-made billionaire when he can’t find a motel.

Observing the speed limit appears optional, using the turn signal an afterthought. Not that there’s much in the way of obstacles — only shimmering fields of wheat stretching across a terrain so flat that if you lost your dog, as the saying goes, you could watch it run away for three days.

It’s here in Canada’s vast breadbasket that Pattison was born and where, at age 90, he’s overseeing one of the newest arms of his $7.4 billion empire: Pattison Agriculture, a string of John Deere equipment dealerships serving 21 million acres of farmland.

“We’re seeing more opportunities than we ever have,” says Pattison, steering confidently, his diminutive frame overwhelmed by the cavernous, black leather seats of his Ram 1500 Laramie truck. “There are still lots of opportunities with all the changes going on in the world.”

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The road trip offers a rare glimpse of the intensely private Pattison, Canada’s third-richest man, who created his iconic business group in seeming defiance of modern empire-building. He eschews emails, carries a cell phone but barely checks it, and can count on one hand the number of times his group has used an investment bank in recent memory.

Pattison is often dubbed Canada’s Warren Buffett — a trope that underscores how relatively unknown he remains outside Canada despite a conglomerate that operates in 85 countries across a dizzying array of industries: supermarkets, lumber, fisheries, disposable packaging for KFC, billboards across Canada and ownership of the No. 1 copyrighted best-seller of all time, the “Guinness World Records.” Believe it or not, he even owns the Ripley Entertainment empire.

“Back in Omaha, I’m known as the Jim Pattison of the United States,” Buffett quipped this month when he surprised Pattison onstage in Toronto as the Canadian billionaire was inducted into the country’s Walk of Fame. Pattison dismisses the comparison. “Warren Buffett is in a class all by himself,” he insists.

Pattison has driven 1,000 miles from the Jim Pattison Group headquarters in Vancouver, across the towering Canadian Rockies to the prairies where he’s acquired four farm equipment companies to create Pattison Agriculture. He likes to drop in unannounced on his holdings, including his supermarkets and dealerships, but word quickly gets around.

“You’re the man we’ve all been waiting for,” says the receptionist at the dealership in Moosomin, Saskatchewan (population 3,100). “You got a call, did ya?” he says with a grin as he shuffles into the shop, helping himself to popcorn as he quizzes employees.

He listens intently as they share their pain points — the dearth of mechanics, narrowing margins on new equipment sales, and the intolerable noise in the cab of a new tractor that has farmers complaining. He occasionally pulls out a pad and an array of colored pens but mostly relies on his still razor-sharp memory.

Pattison’s rags-to-riches story recalls a different era. Born in Luseland, Saskatchewan, during the Great Depression, he wore clothes stitched together from the castoffs of other children because money was so tight. The family moved out west when he was 6, settling in Vancouver’s gritty east side. In the summers he’d return to the family homestead in Saskatchewan, where the land was still plowed by horses. A natural salesman, he was touting seeds door-to-door at age 7 and within a few years was trouncing grown men in a competition to sell the most subscriptions of the Saturday Evening Post.

His path to fortune began with a Pontiac Buick dealership in 1961. He bought it with a Royal Bank of Canada loan after persuading the local manager to exceed the branch’s lending limit fivefold. He keeps the yellowing, handwritten financial statements from that first year in a clear plastic folder.

Pattison says his favorite job is still being a used-car salesman. “If I had to, I could always go back.” He parlayed that into a global business empire over the next five decades, completing hundreds of acquisitions to create Canada’s second-largest private company.

Pattison’s folksy approach belies the tectonic shifts facing some of his businesses. Magazines in their heyday were his best business of all, he says, but people aren’t reading print anymore — the group agreed to sell its U.S. magazine distribution business last month. His car dealerships have seen ride-sharing and autonomous driving threaten to accelerate the potential demise of vehicle ownership.

One of his biggest stakes in an outside company is Westshore Terminals Investment, North America’s biggest coal export facility, in Vancouver — a cash cow with a shrinking life span in an era of tightening emission standards. His biggest public holding is a controlling stake in Canfor, the lumber company that has plunged about 35 percent this year as the U.S. housing market slows.

“Some businesses — we’re exposed like heck,” he says. “But we make the best of what we got. This is part of why I’ve got a job.”

Behind that stodgy image are businesses navigating technological disruption.

The Pattison Agriculture dealership in Yorkton is a newly renovated hub in a region of 60,000-acre farms, some bigger than Lichtenstein. Most of the equipment inside costs half a million dollars each; some customers will drop as much as $29 million a year in purchases.

“See what it costs to be a farmer these days?” Pattison asks as he walks around the warehouse, his 5-foot-6-inch frame dwarfed by the tires on some of the machines. “They’ll be less and less small farms. What’s happening is consolidation, consolidation, consolidation.”

Historically, he’s kept the existing management in place after takeovers, and he gives his deputies a long leash. “He trusts people to do their job,” says his son. The organizational hierarchy is as flat as the surrounding prairies.

For a company with 45,000 employees, it’s still run a bit like a startup. To this day, the corporate headquarters on the 18th floor overlooking Vancouver Harbour and Stanley Park doesn’t have a human resources department. The most important hiring decisions over the years have been made by Pattison and Maureen Chant, his executive assistant of more than 50 years.

Chant may have the most understated job title in corporate Canada. With her shock of snow-white hair and round face, she looks more like a kindly grandmother than the invisible hand that’s kept Pattison and his incongruous empire running.

Chant advises the group’s nearly 30 business divisions and has influenced who runs them. She oversees Pattison’s $25 million, 150-foot yacht, the “Nova Spirit,” which has hosted everyone from Princess Diana to Oprah Winfrey. She also looks after his private jets, his Vancouver office condo and a Palm Springs property (previously owned by Frank Sinatra) where Pattison gathers his top lieutenants once a year. For most of her career, Chant has worked seven days a week.

Asked if he’d ever considered giving Chant, 79, a more prominent title, Pattison seems surprised-it’s never occurred to him, he says. “She’s been a major influence,” he says. “She can retire anytime she wants, but she works because hopefully she likes it.”

Asked whether he himself ever takes a vacation, Pattison says, “Well, I get 365 days… If you like your work, it’s not work.”

Jim Pattison

Early days : “Most of the time, I didn’t have the money to buy anything that was any good, so I had to buy stuff that nobody wanted.”

Jim Pattison Group : With 45,000 employees, it’s based in Vancouver B.C. and ranks as Canada’s second-largest private company. Includes car dealerships, supermarkets, farm-equipment dealerships and Ripley Entertainment. Board members include the CEO of Albertsons, Robert Miller and Blake Nordstrom. (Update: Blake Nordstrom died Jan. 2, 2019 , after this story first published.)

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Jimmy Pattison's yacht Nova Spirit heads out for last-of-summer cruise in Vancouver

On the last official day of summer, september 21st, jimmy pattison's yacht nova spirit heads out on a cruise of indian arm, dodging three huge cruise ships in a busy vancouver harbour.   was invited once on pattison's yacht for a cruise of howe sound with some local luminaries like peter c. newman and assorted business and community leaders. had already decided that howe sound is my favourite place on the planet but that evening cemented it.   follow me on twitter @susangittins twitter.com/susangittins.

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• Economy, Law & Politics

Expensive tastes: Business owners helping put wind in B.C.’s luxury boat sales

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Part of BIV’s What big money buys series: Wealthy Vancouverites are lavishing untold amounts of money on big-ticket indulgences, driving a bonanza for the region’s dealers in luxury furnishings, vehicles, yachts and other top-tier toys.

Given Vancouver’s location on the Pacific Ocean, it’s hardly surprising that one of the top-selling toys for Vancouver’s wealthiest residents is a yacht or high-end fishing boat.

While the number of Vancouverites who own superyachts, like billionaire Jim Pattison, appears to be relatively low, there is such a big demand for smaller pleasure craft in the 40-to-60-foot range in B.C. that Tim Charles, principal owner of Platinum Marine, recently launched a new line – Tactical Custom Boats – for that market.

Luxury models are driving yacht and fishing boat sales in B.C.

A new marina in Victoria highlights the growing demand for superyacht moorage in B.C. The 28-slip Victoria International Marina, which opened in May, can accommodate up to 12 superyachts in the 100-to-120-foot range, and one up to 175 feet in length. The first 40-foot yacht being built at Platinum’s shipyard on Mitchell Island will cost $1.5 million and comes with a mini submarine and drone.

“We have a 43-inch-screen television that pops down,” Charles said. “You can sit at the screen and you can explore hundreds of feet underwater. It has a grabber arm on it so you can see and touch and pick up things underwater.”

Tactical is also building a 77-foot US$6.5 million yacht.

“It is military and navy-grade aluminum hull construction,” Charles said of the Tactical series. “So it is a very heavy-duty boat, but it is completely done with yacht finishes.”

Platinum also owns Crescent Custom Yachts, which builds superyachts ranging in size from 100 to 150 feet and with prices that range from US$14 million to US$24 million. Crescent’s customers are almost exclusively international – mostly American – but Charles expects that nearly all buyers for the new Tactical yachts will be from B.C.

“It’s something the market’s been asking for,” Charles said. “I would say 95% of all of our customers are business owners. The amount of business that’s done on people’s yachts and boats is just tremendous. It’s a business sales tool for many people.”

Another growing demand in the Vancouver market is for luxury fishing boats, said Bob Pappajohn, president of M&P Mercury Sales, which sells both yachts and fishing boats.

“The luxury fishing boat segment has been just incredibly strong,” Pappajohn said. “We are seeing a trend toward higher luxury. One of the biggest trends right now that’s really fuelling this is we’re getting people buying who haven’t owned a bunch of boats before and are really new to it.”

One of the more popular models is a 42-foot Boston Whaler fishing boat that sells for $1.8 million.

Pappajohn said yacht and fishing boat sales have been very healthy in the last few years in Vancouver.

“We’ll sell a half a dozen boats a year,” he said. “Back in 2009-10, it was amazing if you sold one.”

Not only is the number of high-net-worth individuals in Vancouver rising, it’s also becoming easier to pilot a yacht or fishing boat, Pappajohn said, thanks to technology like joystick steering that makes docking a modern boat a cinch.

“The biggest reason for the increase in sales is that it’s more accessible, it’s easier to do, and, yes, there’s more wealth,” Pappajohn said. “Even people spending a lot of money for a day boat to go fishing, they want the high-end one.”

As for the bigger, more luxurious yachts – superyachts or megayachts – Vancouver sees its fair share of them, although many are owned by wealthy Americans. The most spectacular yacht to grace local waters might be the Attessa IV, which can sometimes be seen in Coal Harbour.

It’s hard to miss, and not just because of its size  (332 feet). The yacht comes with a small helicopter. It also features a swimming pool, a 12-seat theatre and four guest rooms.

The Attessa IV is owned by Dennis Washingtion, the American billionaire whose Washington Companies is the largest shareholder of Seaspan Corp.  (NYSE:SSW), the world’s biggest independent charter owner and manager of container ships. According to Forbes, the Attessa IV is valued at $300 million.

Pattison’s 150-foot Nova Spirit yacht is valued at $25 million, according to SuperYacht Fan. According to MSN, it costs $72,000 just to fuel the yacht, which has a nine-person crew.

Estimating how many superyachts are owned by British Columbians is difficult, partly because some of them might be registered outside of Canada. But Craig E. Norris, CEO of Victoria International Marina, estimates that anywhere from 50 to 100 yachts in the 65-foot-and-up range are owned by British Columbians.

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For sale: The unremarkable yellow house behind billionaire Jimmy Pattison’s empire  

The home that helped the self-made tycoon get his start in business can be yours for $1. But to Pattison, it's worth so much more

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There are many things to know about billionaire Jimmy Pattison . For example, he’s now 94 and still drives a pickup truck to work five days a week. Another intriguing tidbit is that he drives that rig from his Vancouver home all the way to Saskatchewan at least once a year to check on the various businesses he owns there, including Pattison Agriculture, a farm equipment dealer with multiple stores headquartered in Swift Current.

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For sale: the unremarkable yellow house behind billionaire jimmy pattison’s empire   back to video.

Pattison enjoys meeting with employees there, and checking up on things, which is key since the thought of not checking up on things, or perhaps slowing down a step as he ticks near life’s century mark, has never occurred to the self-made tycoon, who struck out on his own in business in 1961 without any “money” to his name.

Pattison’s wife Mary was equally broke during the couple’s formative days. But what the Saskatchewanian transplants to the West Coast did possess, in addition to young children, was a yellow, four-bedroom, two-bathroom, beachfront home at 1448 Argyle Ave. in West Vancouver. To the best of Pattison’s recollection, he paid $16,000 for the unremarkable house in 1955.

“I used the equity we had in the house to get my start in business,” he said from his Vancouver office.

That house is currently up for sale for $1, with the catch being you have to move it to make way for a park. But to Pattison, it’s worth so much more.

He was in his 20s and working as a used car salesman when he bought it, and could the kid from Saskatchewan ever talk. He had the gift of the gab and for closing deals, something he brought to a meeting with a Royal Bank of Canada employee that concluded with a $40,000 loan, all thanks to the yellow house.

“It was a great house, right on the water, with great neighbours,” he said. “The tides would come in, and so we built a cement wall to protect it.”

Pattison used the loan to open a Pontiac dealership. More dealerships followed, and within a few decades, the guy who started with nothing but a house was selling more cars than anybody in Western Canada, and well on his way to becoming a billionaire several times over.

Today, he has a hand in much more than just automobiles. He’s in advertising, forest products, media, seafood, grocery stores, commercial real estate, an ocean terminal and even owns the Guinness World Records brand.

Pattison brings representatives from all his various enterprises to Vancouver for an annual general meeting, where the head of each business unit pitches their plan for the year ahead. The owner and the other attendees hear them out, and fire questions at them.

“We are very busy,” he said.

All that activity perhaps explains why Pattison never got around to selling the house at the heart of his entrepreneurial origin story, even after he, Mary and the kids upsized to a much larger West Vancouver home. That move allowed his parents to take up residence in the old waterfront place. After his folks passed away, the captain of his 150-foot yacht, called the Nova Star, lived there.

That is just about where things stood until late December 2022, when Mark Sager, Mayor of the District of West Vancouver, invited Pattison to dinner. Historically, Vancouver and, lately, the district of West Vancouver had been attempting to buy up 32 beachfront properties in the Ambleside neighbourhood to convert the area into parkland.

The process kicked off in the 1970s and had come down to two final holdout homes. Pattison just so happened to own one of them, so the mayor gave the billionaire a call.

“I have known Jimmy my entire life,” Sager said. “Literally, he was friends with my dad. He started out selling cars with my father-in-law. He really didn’t want to sell the house, but I said, ‘Jimmy, it is time.’”

And it turned out it was.

The district engineered what amounted to a $5.175-million land swap for 1448 Argyle Ave. in January. The district paid Pattison said amount, while Jim Pattison Industries Ltd. gave a similar amount to the district for two non-beachfront pieces of land that had been donated by a private citizen.

Theories abound as to why Pattison held onto the yellow house for all those years, and the favourite among them was that he was emotionally attached to it. An alternate theory is that he is a whip-smart businessperson who knows a good piece of real estate when he sees one. Now, his old place is back up for sale — for a dollar.

“We are not trying to make any money out of it; we just don’t want the house to go to waste,” Sager said. “We’ve already got one bid from a company. I am hoping that somebody is able to lift the house, take it away and reuse it.”

The mayor shares an illuminating story about Pattison from his pre-billionaire days. His parents, Hank and Shirley, owned Sager’s Maple Shop, a furniture store in Ambleside. Pattison and his wife went there looking for items to furnish their yellow house. Hank loaded the selected pieces in his truck for delivery and was greeted at the house by Mary, who upon learning of the actual prices, politely observed, “Hank, we can’t afford any of this.”

But Hank knew Pattison was as good as his word, and the word was he would pay him back. The delivery was completed; the bill eventually settled.

We are not trying to make any money out of it; we just don’t want the house to go to waste Mark Sager, West Vancouver mayor

“It is kind of a cute story, eh?” Sager said.

It is also a telling anecdote; a good reminder that we all start out someplace, even billionaires, and that Pattison did not start at the top, but in a yellow house by a beach. Now he has an office on the 18th floor of an office tower in downtown Vancouver. On a clear day he can look across the water and see his current home.

He previously owned the place next door to it as well, and got involved in the heavy lifting when he and Mary moved there, lugging some of that classic, mid-20th century, maple-wood, Canadian furniture Hank Sager sold to him on faith to its new address.

“We never paid for any movers,” he said.

Pattison isn’t entirely sure what to make of the list price of his old place on Argyle Ave. Were he interested in buying it back for a dollar, and he isn’t, he would probably try to find a spot for it next to where he lives now.

He definitely has enough resources at his disposal to do so, unlike the old days and unlike a lot of Canadians who lay awake at night worrying about the housing market .

Home prices, mortgage rate hikes, looming recessions, real estate bubbles — or not — and affordable housing shortages are on people’s minds. But Pattison isn’t one to overly fret on the overall state of housing or the economy.

Who is Jim Pattison? Empire builder and billionaire

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“I think the economy is going to be OK,” he said. “That doesn’t mean there won’t be fluctuations — we always go in cycles. But with immigration, and with new people coming in, I think we’re going to be OK.”

His view of Vancouver real estate would be best summarized as: it is tough to beat a picturesque city on the Pacific Ocean with a mountain backdrop.

“Where could you find better real estate?” he said.

It all depends on the person’s budget and personal taste, but should an unremarkable yellow house that needs a new address and a little TLC strike your fancy, inquiries are welcome. The deadline for submissions is June 28.

The bidding starts at a dollar.

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Billionaire Jim Pattison's West Vancouver house for sale for $1 — land not included

In the 1950s, a young car dealer named Jimmy Pattison traded a property he owned near Horsehoe Bay for a small yellow seaside home just a stone's throw from Ambleside Beach.

“The location, the water … the house was very practical for our family,” said the 93-year-old Pattison from the downtown Vancouver offices of the Jim Pattison Group headquarters Tuesday.

"There’s nothing I didn’t like about that house."

Over the years, Pattison’s family members and the captain of his yacht have lived in the home. But as most other waterfront lots between Ambleside and Dundarave were bought by the District of West Vancouver to make way for the public seawall, only Pattison’s house and the one next door remained.

When he was elected mayor of West Vancouver last November, Mark Sager hoped to changed that.

“This was a plan that started 40 years ago when council decided we wanted public access all the way from 25th (Street) and Bellevue (Avenue) to Ambleside Park,” said Sager, who knew he had to speak to Pattison.

“I’ve known Jimmy my entire life, and I phoned him up and said, 'I know this home has great sentimental value for you, but it really is time.' And he’s such a wonderful man, and he said, 'Mark, you’re right.'”

So Pattison agreed to trade the little yellow house again, this time for a piece of property that had been gifted to the district.

“That allowed us to be able to acquire this home without using any taxpayer dollars,” said Sager.

Now that the district of West Vancouver owns the plot of waterfront land, it’s selling the house that sits on it for the tidy sum of $1.

“And who buys the house has to pay for the move and have the land to put it on,” explained Pattison.

“We are hoping somebody will save this home,” said Sager. “Take it and float it away and put it in a new spot, and restore it and keep it so it doesn’t have to go in the landfill.”

The district is partnering with Light House, a non-profit that works to save homes from being demolished.

“This is a valuable home, it has housed people, it can still house people,” said Gil Yaron, Light House's managing director of strategic initiatives.

“There is a housing crisis we are facing today, and homes like the Pattison home can provide housing for people in other communities. There is no reason to tear them down.”

The mayor is confident the home can be moved in one piece.

“Nickel Bros, I believe, have been out and inspected it. They’re a moving company, so I think it can be, yes,” said Sager.

Pattison chuckled when he was told the home he bought nearly 70 years ago could be picked up and moved.

“I guess it’s not a big house, so you probably could do it,” he said.

And Canada’s second-richest man is thrilled the land it sits on will soon become part of the public seawall.

“People can walk in the nice weather, they can take their children there to play in the park,” said Pattison, adding that the district is "doing the right thing.”

The district is also in talks to purchase the house next door, which is now the last remaining obstacle to having a continuous seawall.

“The vision is to complete the Ambleside waterside acquisition plan, and the seawall that started all those years ago,” said Sager.

When Jimmy Pattison moved into the yellow house decades ago, the West Vancouver waterfront was mostly private property. The district hopes it will soon all belong to the people.   

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How Canadian billionaire Jim Pattison came around to believe in climate change

What he is and isn't doing to reduce environmental impacts from his massive conglomerate.

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Our planet is changing. So is our journalism. This story is part of a CBC News initiative entitled Our Changing Planet  to show and explain the effects of climate change and what is being done about it.

On this Wednesday morning, Jim Pattison is in good spirits.

The majority of his business lines are booming, from groceries and lumber to automotive sales and leasing. Only a few of his companies are struggling under the weight of the pandemic. It's an empire that includes radio and TV stations as well as billboards in airports, train stations and transit locations.

Throughout his corporate office are memorabilia and photos collected over his career. The collection is a who's who of prominent figures, including Pattison in the Oval Office with Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, to hanging out with Oprah Winfrey, and being carried in the arms of Shaquille O'Neal.

While his business career has spanned six decades, it's only in recent years that Pattison has embraced climate change. Back in 1989, environmentalist David Suzuki spoke to Pattison's company about climate change during a meeting in Sidney, B.C.

• Have questions about COP26 or climate science, policy or politics? Email us:  [email protected] . Your input helps inform our coverage.

Most managers, including Pattison, disregarded the message as off base and out of touch, except for a few young people in the room who were eager to meet Suzuki.

"Bottom line is — he turned out to be very right," said Pattison.

It was only when former U.S. vice-president Al Gore spoke to management about 10 years ago that Pattison began to acknowledge the severity of the issue and its wide-ranging impacts. Gore was invited back and spoke to the company for a second time.

These days, climate change comes up in every meeting, said Pattison, since just about every business is impacted by it in one way or another.

The corporate empire began in 1961 with Pattison's first car dealership in Vancouver. The growth into many other industries and product lines has been fuelled by acquisition.

The company prioritizes certain factors like market share and long-term growth when evaluating a potential target, although climate considerations have risen to the top.

"When we're talking about buying a company today, the first thing we're looking at [is] where does it fit into the environmental issues side of things," he said.

Earlier this month, Pattison celebrated his 93rd birthday while driving around Saskatchewan in a pickup truck visiting various farm equipment dealerships he owns. 

He recently returned from Sweden, where his company's forestry division does business.

His own office overlooks the Vancouver harbour and the cauldron used for the 2010 Olympics. It's where he reads three physical newspapers a day, checks stock prices on a terminal, and spends much of his time talking on his desk phone.

While he sees climate change as a priority, his company is still involved in fossil fuels, including the emissions-intensive coal business.

Westshore Terminal Ltd., boasts being the busiest coal facility in all of North America. The Vancouver port facility exports both thermal coal for power plants and metallurgical coal, used in steel-making. The plan, Pattison said, is to exit the thermal coal business within the next 10 years.

"From our company's point of view, it'll be less than that," he said.

On the eve of the UN climate conference in Glasgow, there are calls for the world to finally shake its addiction to thermal coal. 

The Conference of Parties (COP), as it's known, meets every year and is the global decision-making body set up in the early 1990s to implement the  United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change  and subsequent climate agreements.

The burning of coal represents one of the biggest single obstacles to meeting the Paris Agreement goal of limiting warming to 1.5 C.

COP26 president Alok Sharma has urged world leaders to "consign coal to history."

Westshore Terminal will soon start transitioning some of the facility to handle potash.

"We have to honour our contracts to ship coal, and certainly our customers, we have to look after them. By the same token, the industry has got to transition to things that are friendly to the environment. But it doesn't happen like that," said Pattison, snapping his fingers.

"We got to take it one step at a time, as quickly as we possibly can."

WATCH  |  When Jim Pattison began to take climate change seriously:

The meeting with a U.S. vice-president influenced Canadian billionaire Jim Pattison on climate change

Pattison said many decisions are made at the company and in his personal life to reduce impacts on the environment, although some luxuries remain, he admits, since "we use the yacht and [private] plane for business, when we need it."

While his business empire continues to expand, his core automotive business is undergoing a revolution of sorts, as manufacturers produce more zero-emission vehicles every year.

Pattison has been impressed after driving both electric and hydrogen vehicles. Still, even someone with so much experience in the sector struggles to predict the speed of the evolution away from gasoline and diesel.

"Definitely, it's coming," he said. "It's just how fast can we transition? We have to do it over time."

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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Kyle Bakx is a Calgary-based journalist with the network business unit at CBC News. He files stories from across the country and internationally for web, radio, TV and social media platforms. You can email story ideas to [email protected].

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He’s 91 and worth billions. Now Jimmy Pattison is hunting deals

Sometimes dubbed Canada's Warren Buffett, 91-year-old Jimmy Pattison has a view of the pandemic's impact that few can match.

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Billionaire Jimmy Pattison says his phone won’t stop ringing. There’s nothing like a global crisis to drive deals to those with cash.

“We’re looking today at opportunities like we’ve never had before,” Pattison said Monday by video conference from Vancouver. “We’ve never been in better shape to invest. The question now is, where do we feel comfortable?”

He’s 91 and worth billions. Now Jimmy Pattison is hunting deals Back to video

Sometimes dubbed Canada’s Warren Buffett, the 91-year-old Pattison has a view of the pandemic’s impact that few can match. He presides over an empire that operates in some 85 countries spanning an array of industries: supermarkets, lumber, fisheries, disposable packaging, theme parks, auto dealers and more. Last year, the closely held Jim Pattison Group Inc. had $10.9 billion in revenue and employed 48,000 people.

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Pattison said he has been contacted by a number of private companies, some of them “significant” in size, that need money because of COVID-19 and the recession. He won’t speculate on where he’ll do his next deal. But he is certain that some of the economic changes wrought by the pandemic will be lasting. Airlines are out, downtown hotels face a difficult road back and the restaurant industry will never be the same, Pattison said.

Among his own companies, the hardest hit have been tourism-related stalwarts like Ripley Entertainment Inc., which typically hosted 15 million visitors annually at its museums and aquariums, and the Canadian franchise of Great Wolf Lodge, a chain of indoor water parks.

“I can tell you one thing — there’s never been anything like this in the history of the world,” said Pattison, who grew up in Western Canada during the Great Depression. “It’s certainly going to affect what we buy.”

Before the pandemic, “I’d have put 100 per cent of our money into a Great Wolf Lodge, but I wouldn’t today.” The coronavirus isn’t a one-time risk either, he said. “It can happen again.”

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Climate Focus

Pattison, Canada’s fifth-richest person, built his empire from a single, loss-making Vancouver car dealership he acquired in 1961. His fortune today is worth about $6.7 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. In his office hangs a framed photo of Pattison and Buffett with a message scribbled across the top by the head of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.: “To a man who’s built a business as interesting as Berkshire’s.”

Pattison sits in a conference room at his 18th-floor headquarters in a tower that typically looks onto Vancouver’s pristine harbour and craggy, forest-draped mountains beyond. Recently, that view has been obscured by a sickly grey haze. Smoke from forest fires raging along the U.S. West Coast has been drifting north, at times making Vancouver No. 1 on the list of cities with the world’s most polluted air.

“We have got to focus on the environment, the environment, the environment,” Pattison said. “Anything that is negative, in my opinion, to do with the environment is going out of business sooner or later.”

It’s a remarkable shift in Pattison’s preoccupations. When interviewed by Bloomberg in 2018 over the course of two days, he never once mentioned climate change.

But the signs have become impossible to ignore. Exploding pine beetle populations are decimating the province’s lumber industry, with major impacts on companies such as Vancouver-based Canfor Corp., of which Pattison holds 51 per cent. The 700 boats his fishing business owns are finding it harder to catch fish in some places as oceans get warmer.

“It is absolutely the No. 1 thing that we have on our list when we’re looking at buying something — how does that affect the environment,” Pattison said.

Yet that conviction wavers when it comes to Westshore Terminals Investment Corp., the largest coal loading facility on the west coast of the Americas.

“If people want to buy the coal — we’re not selling the coal, we’re a service department, if you like, shipping it — that’s not our decision,” he said, acknowledging it’s a cash cow with a shrinking life span. “There will be a day, in my opinion, when there will be no thermal coal going out of that terminal.”

In the meantime, the former used car salesman is getting familiar with the trappings of the new energy economy. He spent last weekend test driving a Toyota hydrogen car around southwestern B.C.

“All I’ve driven is engines all my life and so when you get something that’s this smooth and fast and goes like a dart and quiet,” he trails off, marvelling. “Boy, I never drove anything nicer.”

Succession Plan

Like most, the coronavirus has changed Pattison’s daily life in unexpected ways. He values face-to-face interaction so much that he drives across part of Canada every year to visit his supermarkets and auto dealerships in person. Today, he estimates 70 per cent of the desks at Pattison Group’s headquarters are empty and he’s wondering how to plan that annual road trip when communities fearful of the virus don’t welcome out-of-town licence plates.

“I’ll go as soon as I think they won’t throw tomatoes at me,” he said.

Yet some things remain constant. Pattison still comes into his headquarters every day, as does Maureen Chant, his executive assistant for the past 57 years. He’s still acquiring car dealerships — four more in the last 120 days.

Pattison, who turns 92 on Oct. 1, talks matter-of-factly about his group’s succession plan, which he reviews and updates every quarter.

“If I don’t make it to dinner tonight, we’re all set to go,” he said. He has lined up the directors, the management team, a role for a foundation, as well as the next chief executive officer.

“There’s got to be one boss,” he said.

Who will it be? “You’ll find out.”

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10 Countries With The Most Billionaires

The world's billionaires' wealth doubled over the last ten years, increasing through the pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis since 2020. According to the Executive Director of Oxfam International, "this decade is shaping up to be the best yet for billionaires." $26 trillion (63%) of all new wealth went to the richest 1% and $16 trillion (37%) to the rest of the world. In other words, a billionaire gained about $1.7 million for every $1 earned among the bottom 90%. 

According to the World Bank, the world has been facing the most significant increase in global inequality and poverty since the Second World War . Half of the world’s billionaires live in countries with no inheritance tax for direct descendants, deriving income from asset returns and only four cents of every tax dollar from taxes on wealth. An up to 5 % increase in the world’s multi-millionaires and billionaires' annual wealth tax (or implementing inheritance tax, property and land taxes, or net wealth taxes) would raise $1.7 trillion a year to lift 2 billion people out of poverty or provide universal healthcare and social protection for all low-income countries.

The current 3,311 billionaires worldwide hold almost $11.8 trillion in collective wealth acquired from publicly and privately held businesses. Europe saw the highest growth of billionaire wealth in 2021 at 22%, with collective wealth comprising $4.45 trillion. Even Africa's billionaire wealth grew 16.5% year-over-year, holding collectively 2 trillion dollars. These are the ten countries with the most billionaires in 2021, according to Altrata Billionaire Census.

1. United States - 975 billionaires (worth $4.45 trillion)

The US is the world's wealthiest nation, with 975 billionaires and $4.45 trillion in collective wealth. The top rich hardly felt the pandemic's effects on the rest of the economy, coming out with a collective wealth of $4.56 trillion in April 2021, almost double that of the bottom 50% of Americans' $2.62 trillion. Amidst the pandemic, recession, and rocked financial markets, 719 billionaires had more wealth than 165 million people in 61 million households (the bottom half). About a quarter of the US' wealthiest reside in California , the state with the fifth-largest global economy and home to Silicon Valley .

The Golden State has been leading America's economic growth for half a decade, packing more wealth than most countries. California is a densely populated state with an “open, experimental culture” motto that attracts entrepreneurs. Its world-renowned movie scene, aerospace, and tech industries keep expanding and giving, with trending prosperity for the state and more wealth in its global economy. There is also no system or requirement for Americans to report their total wealth to the government. 

2. China - 514 (worth $1.737 trillion)

China packs a lot of wealth with 514 billionaires, including Hong Kong's 114, for a total of 1.737 trillion net worth. According to Forbes 2021 World’s Billionaires List, the number of Chinese billionaires rose by over 60% from 2000 to 2021, paralleling its astonishing economic growth with GDP per capita increasing more than ten-some and nearly 50% growth in the last six years.

China demonstrates idiosyncrasy with unheard-of billionaires appearing, others shifting, and disappearing, without a coherent pattern. Hong Kong's wealthiest families remain on the list since 1997, with Li and Lee leading wealth with nearly 70% of its entire real estate business. Many rich people find paradise particularly in the Hong-Kong SAR (special adminstrative region), whose government traditionally relied on land auctions' highest bidders for revenue. When Beijing came into power in 1997, it continued limiting competition and favoring the same tycoons, now dominating major economic sectors of retail and infrastructure.

The vibrant Chinese market economy is ballooning from the rapid growth of high-tech infrastructure and shifting priorities, but limited by Hong Kong's failure to produce new wealth and diversify from a lack of startups. Hong Kong claims to be Asia’s financial hub and aspiring world city, a highly-contested statement for unwillingness to explore new engines of growth. Despite heightened instability from a lack of economic diversification, the Hong-Kong SAR showed the highest net increase in billionaires among global cities and the second-largest number among the world’s urban centers.

China is a dualistic capitalist-socialist economy with a solid central government orchestrating through top-down dynamic policies. It values entrepreneurship and strong business skills, with  People's Daily , the official newspaper of China's Communist Party, stating that "there is no contradiction between regulating under the law and supporting development." Chinese volatility in billionaires is just "the imprint left by the strong hand of China’s authoritarian government ."

3. Germany - 176 (worth $602 billion)

Despite soaring inflation, Germany places third with 176 billionaires, and millionaires, flying by 7.4% since last year, with today's 1.6 million millionaires, or one in roughly 52 people, for about 2% of the population. Capgemini agency explains Germany’s expanding wealth in the face of the pandemic due to its relentlessly-rising overall GDP. Despite the federal epidemic control restrictions and sky-high property prices, many Germans saved money by withholding disposable income through the holidays, giving-up trips, expensive events, and festivals. The high-income country, with a strong workforce saving every cent, saw many steps into the millionaire category.

Dieter Schwarz, a billionaire owner of Europe’s low-cost supermarket giant Lidl, had a successful year with a net worth increase of over $10 billion to $47.1 billion. Many were buying groceries rather than going out as part of the saving money scheme and tight COVID-19 regulations. Klaus-Michael Kuehne, a logistics magnate, recently emerged as one the wealthiest Europeans, making $11 billion in a year for an estimated $37.3 billion with Kühne + Nagel, his grandfather's shipping empire, demonstrating people's preference to order online through the pandemic. Another billionaire out of Germany's seven newest is Christian Angermayer, an investor in life sciences, fintech, AI, psychedelics, and cryptocurrencies. 

4. India - 166 (worth $384 billion)

Since last year, India's increasing number of billionaires has held the fifth-largest collective wealth globally. While the country has been suffering through multiple crises, including malnutrition and unemployment, its ten wealthiest doubled their wealth since last year by enough to fund education for 26 years or guarantee employment for 38 years in India. Its richest man is Gautam Adani, with a $150 billion net worth, which is about twice the amount of his runner-up, Mukesh Ambani. From 2012 to 2021, 40% of new wealth belonged to 1% of the population and 3% to the bottom 50. India’s billionaires soared in wealth by 46% in 2022, and as of January 16, 2023, 5% of Indians own more than 60% of the country’s wealth, and the bottom 50 still possess only three. The “obscene inequality” results from no progressive taxation, while a 20% tax on the wealthiest billionaire’s unrealized gains from 2017–2021 could employ more than five million primary school teachers for a year.

India's poor suffered through the pandemic, unable to afford survival necessities, with the number of hungry increasing by 160 million since 2018. Sixty-five percent of the country’s deaths are kids under five. India is “on a fast track to becoming a country only for the rich," where Dalits, Adivasis, Muslims, women, and informal sector workers are marginalized “in a system which ensures the survival of the richest.” India’s government reduced the corporate tax slabs from 30% to 22% in 2019. Some 64% of the total GST came from the bottom 50% of the population last year, 33 % from the middle 40, and 3% from the top 10.

5. United Kingdom - 120 (worth $266 billion)

Sir James Ratcliffe is the wealthiest man in the UK with an estimated $16.3 billion, followed by Michael Platt with an estimated $15.2 billion. There are no new British billionaires. Seven fell out, like Geeta Gupta-Fisker of electric vehicle startup "Fisker," Matt Molding of THG beauty and protein, and Eddie & Sol Zakay of the Topland Group real estate. Many of the world's super-rich favor living in London, particularly as the HQ location for big business owners to expand their companies. London attracts many Indian oligarchs, including those committing financial fraud and seeking refuge, such as Nirav Modi, Vijay Mallya, and Lalit Modi. The extradition treaty between the UK and India protects economic fugitives from the latter's harsh prison terms and the government’s attempts to influence investigating bodies.

The United Kingdom judiciary allowed Modi to stay, stating that his extradition was politically inclined. Among them, billionaires and criminals settle in London and live a wealthy life benefitting from British tax laws, the absence of a financial regulator, and money evasion opportunities. Others come for the British commodity trading markets, the renowned National Lottery System, and sports betting avenues. Lastly, the UK favors foreign investment and offers the lowest corporate taxes.

6. Switzerland - 111 (worth $365 billion)

The founder of Checkout.com, Guillaume Pousaz, is Switzerland’s most prosperous European top tech entrepreneur, worth some $23 billion, while Stéphane Bonvin, CEO of Investis real estate group, is the only new Swiss billionaire since last year. Switzerland's native and foreign-born 111, primarily white, male billionaires hold the sixth-largest collective wealth in the world. The few resident female billionaires include the Heineken heiress Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken, and Marina Picasso, Picasso's heiress. Many Swiss immigrants who come for traditionally-favorable taxation acquire Swiss citizenship. Roughly two-thirds of Switzerland’s 50 richest come from Germany, France, Italy, and the United Kingdom, along with numerous wealthy Russians, Swedish, Belgians, Dutch, and four Africans.

Swiss-made products, luxury housing, and the alps attract born-rich heirs and heiresses, with only a third of billionaires hailing from a middle-class background who build up from scratch. Most rich live in Geneva, with sizable families, like Theo Müller, with nine children. They come from exciting backgrounds, including Jorge Lemann, a former tennis star, or former L’Oréal Chairman Lindsay Owen Jones, a race car driver. Unlike US computer geeks, the Swiss' wealth spun out of investment and banking, food and beverage processing, pharmaceuticals, manufacturing, hospitality, real estate, and everything in between.

7. Russia - 107 (worth $475 billion)

According to Forbes 2021 Billionaire List, Russia’s billionaires were worth a collective $808.06 billion (US $584 billion) upon gaining much wealth during the pandemic. Many started as typical wealthy businessmen with privatized state companies sold by then-president Boris Yeltsin to raise cash and transition to capitalism. These included oil, gas, and media enterprises, which snagged at rock-bottom prices before Russia's economy returned to a degree of order. Russia's top billionaire today is NLMK Group's Vladimir Lisin, with an estimated $18.4 net worth from leading manufacturers of steel products. There are 34 fewer billionaires than last year, following a weakened ruble, plunging company valuations, and only two new billionaires. Denis Sverdlov owns an electric vehicle company, while Egor Kulkov is a pharmaceutical magnate.

Russia places seventh by the number of billionaires and boasts the fourth-largest collective wealth in the world, despite its wealth being under a massive hit from sanctions by the EU , UK , and the US. The billionaires' prospects are grim, with the West going after its elite to weaken the country and deter a full-on invasion in Ukraine. The sanctioned wealthy individuals with Kremlin ties face travel bans and have immense, vulnerable assets in the West. The US plans to freeze the Russian oligarch's assets, ban Americans from engaging in Russia's business and cut the country from the global financial system with no dollar access. All of Russia's banks took a big hit, along with VEB and Russia's military bank, sanctioned by the US. Germany and the US are attempting to stop the progress of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia to Germany .

8. Saudi Arabia - 71 (worth $192 billion)

When rising oil prices sharply reversed for the first time since the financial crash a decade ago, the whole Middle East experienced a 7.9% fall in billionaire numbers in 2018 and a 6.5% fall in collective wealth. While Europe retained the most number of billionaires through the recession, the Middle East held-onto most billionaires' net-worth. In 2019, the kingdom was home to 57 billionaires with a net worth of $157 billion and gained more ultra-rich during the pandemic through positive equity markets and expanding economies. Saudi Arabia then placed ninth with the most billionaires and retained this ranking into 2021, although their fortunes worsened since last year.

A corruption case in 2017 regarding top businessmen in the oil-rich kingdom saw many arrested following orders from the anti-corruption committee. Among the detained, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Kingdom Holding had a net worth of $18.7 billion in 2017, whose firm has high stakes in Twitter, Citigroup, and the Four Seasons. Unable to assess the wealth of the wealthiest men in the kingdom, Forbes has excluded Arabs from the global rich list since 2018. Today, Al Waleed Bin Talal Al Saoud is Saudi's richest person with a net worth of $16.5 billion, followed by Mohamed Al Amoudi with $6.29 billion.

9. France & Italy - 68 both (France: worth $294 billion; Italy: worth $217 billion)

France and Italy have 68 billionaires each, but France leads with the seventh-largest collective wealth in the world of $294 billion, while Italy has $87 billion less. Both nations are billionaire hotspots for high fashion, rich culture, expansive art, and luxurious coastal mansions. France's economy is driven by the most-famous luxury, beauty, and fashion brands, and those who invest in big names like Bernard Arnault (LVMH), Francoise Bettencourt Meyers (L'Oréal), François Pinault (Kering), and the Wertheimer brothers (Chanel). French brand owners are among top-ten richest people in Europe, including the richest, Bernard Arnault with $158 billion, Rodolphe Saade with $41 billion (fifth-richest), and Francois Pinault with $40 billion (sixth-richest). There has been one more French billionaire since last year, and 7% added to the total net worth. 

Likewise, in Italy, brand owners are the richest. As of August 14, Giovanni Ferrero is number one with $33.8 billion, and Giorgio Armani is the second-richest with $6.9 billion. Among the world's richest men in 2002, Silvio Berlusconi and his family are now third with $6.1 billion. Massimiliana Landini Aleotti is the richest female billionaire, with $4.9 billion. According to Italy’s inheritance tax records, the wealth of the top 0.1% or 50,000 adults doubled from 5.5% to 9.3% from 1995 to 2016, while the poorest 50% wealth fell from 11.7% to 3.5%. The middle class, about 40% of the population, keeps its wealth relatively high. Italy has one of the highest wealth-to-income ratios where some 8.5 trillion euros equals about seven years of national income.

10. Canada - 60 (worth $270 billion)

Some Canadians struggled during the pandemic, rationing little money for food and utility bills, while others got richer than they ever dreamt. Billionaires' total assets have grown by 51% since the pandemic's start, accelerating Canada's trend of already-high wealth inequality. As of August 4, 2022, the richest are David Thomson with 51.7 billion U.S. dollars, Changpeng Zhao with $17.4 billion, and Jim Pattison with $12.1 billion. Since 2020, billionaires' collective wealth has risen by $78 billion.The top richest, with $249 billion, has about the same as the bottom 40%, with $248 billion in assets. According to Ian Thomson, policy manager of Oxfam Canada, the accelerated wealth increase among billionaires is a shocking trend, where "things just picked up dramatically ever since 2020 and during the pandemic time period.” Out of every $100 of new wealth created in Canada within the last ten years, the richest 1% gained $34, while the bottom gained $5, or seven times less, among many more people. 

According to Oxfam, nearly two-thirds of all new wealth of $42 trillion since 2020 went to the richest 1%, for almost double the amount the rest of the world gained in two years. Many surged in wealth in 2022 from food and energy profits, where 95 food and energy corporations more than doubled in earnings since last year. At least half of inflation in Australia, the US, and the UK was from excess corporate profits. The Waltons, who own half of Walmart, made $8.5 billion, while India's energy magnate Gautam Adani soared with $42 billion more in 2022 alone. 

Depending on the country’s economy and a billionaire’s role, many dropped to millionaire ranks during the pandemic, while others gained more wealth. Favoring the mega-rich is a 40-year trend, where many governments slash income tax rates on the richest while upping taxes on goods and services. Out of 15 countries by billionaire population, all but the UK, Russia, and France saw a fall in numbers, and all Asia-Pacific billionaires declined in population and total wealth. In 2018, North America was the only region with an increased billionaire population.

While some bathe in money, entire countries face bankruptcies, and 1.7 billion workers live amidst inflation that is outpacing wages. Over 820 million people (one in ten on Earth) are hungry, with nearly 60% of women and girls as the world’s hungriest. The poorest countries spend quadruple to repay loans to wealthy creditors than on healthcare. At the same time, three-quarters of the world governments plan public sector spending cuts of $7.8 trillion over the next five years, including healthcare and education.

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Three Candidates File For Moscow City Council

August 30, 2023 Evan Ellis News

Three candidates have filed for Moscow City Council.

Councilwoman Sandra Kelly has filed for re-election.  Newcomers Joe Campbell and Nathan Tupper have also filed for Moscow City Council.  There are three seats on council in Moscow up for election this fall.

Longtime Moscow School Board Trustee Dawn Fazio has a challenger for her re-election bid.  Jim Gray has filed for that seat.

There is a challenged race for mayor in Juliaetta as Eric McDowell has filed his candidacy Challenging incumbent Richard Groceclose.

There are dozens of small taxing district positions up for a vote this year locally in Idaho.  Candidate filing runs through next week.