| The Lord Thomson of Fleet | |
|---|---|
| Born | September 1, 1923 North Bay, Ontario, Canada |
| Died | June 12, 2006 (aged 82) Toronto, Ontario, Canada |
| Occupation | Chairman, Woodbridge Co. Ltd[1] |
| Net worth | $17.9 billion USD (Mar. 2006)[2] |
| Spouse | Nora Marilyn Lavis Thomson |
| Website | |
| thomson.com | |
Kenneth Thomson, 2nd Baron Thomson of Fleet (September 1, 1923 – June 12, 2006), in Canada known as Ken Thomson, was a Canadian businessman and art collector who, at the time of his death, was the richest person in Canada, and the ninth richest person in the world, according to Forbes.com, with assets of approximately US $17.9 billion.
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Kenneth Thomson was born on September 1, 1923 in North Bay, Ontario. He was the son of the late Roy Thomson. The family moved from the United Kingdom to Canada when Roy Thomson was young. The elder Thomson was the founder of the Thomson Corporation, a forerunner of Thomson Reuters. Thomson Corporation was formerly best known as a newspaper company whose properties included The Times, but has since Roy's death divested almost all its traditional newspaper assets in favour of electronic information services and products, save The Globe and Mail daily.
Kenneth Thomson was educated at Upper Canada College in Toronto and at St. John's College of the University of Cambridge in the UK (he received his degree in Economics and Law). During World War II, he served in the Royal Canadian Air Force. Following the war, he completed his education and entered the family business. In 1956, he married Nora Marilyn Lavis, with whom he had three children: David, Peter, and Lynne (now known as Taylor).
On his father's death, Thomson succeeded as 2nd Lord Thomson of Fleet. However, Thomson never used his noble title in Canada and never took up his seat in the House of Lords. In a 1980 interview with Saturday Night magazine he said "In London I'm Lord Thomson, in Toronto I'm Ken. I have two sets of Christmas cards and two sets of stationery. You might say I'm having my cake and eating it too. I'm honouring a promise to my father by being Lord Thomson, and at the same time I can just be Ken."[3]
He also succeeded his father as chair of what was then a media empire made up of extensive newspaper and television holdings. The Thomson media empire added the prestigious Globe and Mail in Toronto to The Times and Sunday Times in Britain and The Jerusalem Post in Israel. Under Lord Thomson of Fleet, the Thomson Corporation sold its North Sea oil holdings and sold The Times to Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation and the Jerusalem Post to Conrad Black's Hollinger Inc. The Globe and Mail was combined with BCE's cable and television assets (including CTV and The Sports Network) to form Bell Globemedia, controlled by BCE with Thomson as a minority shareholder. The company then sold all of its community newspapers to become a financial data services giant and one of the world's most powerful information services and academic publishing companies. Today, the company operates primarily in the United States from its headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut. In 2002, The Thomson Corporation was listed on the New York Stock Exchange as "TOC".
According to Forbes Magazine in 2005, the Thomson family is the richest in Canada, and Lord Thomson of Fleet was the fifteenth richest person in the world, with a personal net worth of US $17.9 billion. Between the time of that report and his death, he jumped six positions to ninth with assets of almost $22.6 billion.
Over the past fifty years, Thomson distinguished himself as one of North America's leading art collectors and has been a major benefactor to the Art Gallery of Ontario. In 2002 he paid the highest price ever for a Canadian painting when he purchased Canadian artist Paul Kane's Scene in the Northwest: Portrait of John Henry Lefroy.[4] At a Sotheby's auction that year, Thomson purchased Peter Paul Rubens' painting "The Massacre of the Innocents" for £49.5 million (CAD $117 million).[4]
In 2002, Lord Thomson of Fleet stepped down as Chair of Thomson Corporation, installing his eldest son, David Thomson. He retained his positions as Chairman of The Woodbridge Company, the family's holding company, which owned a controlling share of Thomson Corporation. Following his retirement from active business, he donated to the Art Gallery of Ontario nearly 2,000 art works worth more than US $300 million, representing the finest private art collection in Canada. His gift contained masterpieces by renowned Canadian artists plus those from his collection of European works of art dating from the Middle Ages to the mid-nineteenth century, including Rubens' Massacre of the Innocents.
In his final years Thomson lived in the Rosedale area died in 2006 in Toronto at his office of an apparent heart attack.
| Peerage of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Roy Thomson |
Baron Thomson of Fleet 1976-2006 |
Succeeded by David Thomson |