Michael DeGroote
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Michael G. DeGroote, OC (born 1932) is a Canadian businessman and philanthropist. Aside from his business career which has made him a billionaire, he is best known as a major private donor to McMaster University.
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[edit] Early life
DeGroote was born in Belgium to Flemish parents and immigrated to Canada with his parents when he was 14 years old. He left school in Grade 9 to help his family by working in the tobacco fields near Tillsonburg, Ontario.
[edit] Business career
In 1959 he purchased Laidlaw Transport Ltd., a small trucking company based in Hagersville, Ontario. Under his direction, Laidlaw expanded past trucking by entering the solid waste and school bus industries. By the mid 1970s Laidlaw was a large and successful business, and DeGroote had personally become wealthy enough that he was able to purchase the Hamilton Tiger-Cats of the Canadian Football League.
In March 1988, DeGroote sold his Laidlaw shares to Canadian Pacific; in return, he received a combination of cash and CP shares worth $499 million.
In 1990, he retired to Bermuda. However, controversy followed him after his departure: in December 1990, he resigned as a Laidlaw director, and in August 1992, Laidlaw paid $7.65 million to settle a class action lawsuit which had alleged that Laidlaw's corporate officers had "misrepresented the financial condition of Laidlaw." DeGroote also paid $23 million to the Ontario Securities Commission to settle a claim regarding insider trading of Laidlaw stock.
Though still residing in Bermuda, DeGroote has been involved in a number of business ventures since his retirement, such as Republic Waste, AutoNation, and Century Business Services.
[edit] Awards and philanthropy
In 1990, DeGroote was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.
In 1992, he made a major donation to McMaster University which funded the construction of a new building for its business school, which was subsequently renamed the Michael G. DeGroote School of Business. The same year, he received an honorary degree from McMaster.
In 2003, he donated $105 million to McMaster, which funded a number of medical research centres as well as a building, the Michael G. DeGroote Centre for Learning and Discovery (commonly abbreviated as MDCL to avoid confusion with the DeGroote School of Business). In addition, the McMaster School of Medicine was renamed to the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine at McMaster.
