In this article we discuss the 5 Richest People In Canada. If you want to read our detailed analysis of Canada’s richest people, go directly to 15 Richest People In Canada.
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5. Galen Weston
Net Worth: $8.5 billion
Galen Weston is the former chairman of George Weston Limited and Loblaw Companies. He also owns Brown Thomas group, Whittington Investment and Selfridges. Galen’s father expanded the family bakery into supermarkets, fisheries and frozen foods. Galen Weston bought Brown Thomas, a clothing store, and expanded it to 20 other stores.
Under Weston’s management, Lobalaw Companies became the most extensive chain of supermarkets in Canada. He also bought another Canadian retailer company called Holt Renfrew. In 1989, he built a resort in Florida.
Today, George Weston Limited is made up of 3 companies. Lobalaw Companies is one of the largest retailers of food in Canada. Their company Choice Properties is the leading Real Estate investment trust in Canada. Lastly, Weston Foods is the top producer of baked goods in North America and has operations in the United States. George Weston has a market capitalization of $11.5 billion.
4. David Cheriton
Net Worth: $8.9 billion
David Cheriton is a Canadian professor at Stanford University. He teaches computer science and IT. He co-founded Granite Systems with Andreas von Bechtolsheim and sold it to Cisco in 1996. He also co-founded Kealia with Andreas and sold it to Sun Microsystems for millions of dollars.
His primary source of success and wealth was an investment he made into Google when it was barely a startup. The market capitalization of Google today is $1.3 trillion. He has also invested in several startups like VMware, Tintri, Zunavision and other companies. He founded Arista Networks, a company that produces a data switch that significantly reduces the delay between servers.
He is also the founder of Brainoft Inc, a company that creates a device that can use phones and voice commands to control appliances in the home.
3. Tobi Lütke
Net Worth: $10.1 billion
Tobias Lütke is the founder and CEO of Shopify, an e-commerce firm in Canada that creates software that helps companies set up and manage online stores. An expert programmer, he was dissatisfied with the software available for online stores at the time. Lutke launched an online snowboard shop with Scott Lake and Daniel Weinand. They decided to work on creating tools for online merchants.
In 2006, Lütke and his partners launched Spotify as a collection of tools that online merchants could use to design and customize their sites. The Shopify software was user-friendly, simple and easy to operate. Today, the Shopify platform has over 325,000 shops using its software. It also hosts companies like Google, Tesla and Kylie Cosmetics.
2. Joseph Tsai
Net Worth: $12.6 billion
Joseph Tsai, a naturalized Canadian citizen, is the co-founder and Vice-Chairman of the Alibaba Group. When Tsai met Jack Ma, he was working as an executive at Investor AB. He left his high-paying job to join Ma’s Alibaba. Joseph Tsai is one of the founding members of Alibaba group, and was instrumental in providing software and managing the company.
Today, Alibaba is the leading e-commerce company in China. The current market capitalization of Alibaba is $688 billion
It has over 1 billion users, and over 100,000 employees globally. Joseph Tsai is currently the vice-chairman of the company.
1. David Thomson & Family
Net Worth: $40.7 billion
David Thomson is the co-chairman of Woodbridge, the company based in Canada that controls Thomson Reuters. Roy Thomson, David’s grandfather, established a media and publishing company through acquisitions in the 1950s. David Thomson became the CEO of the company after the death of his father, Kenneth.
Under David’s management, the company witnessed a lot of expansion. He acquired Reuters. The Thomson family also acquired Bells Canada and the Globe and Mail newspaper based in Canada.
David Thomson also owns a private art collection and Osmington, a real estate company. He is also one of the owners of the Winnipeg Jets.
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