Jim Pattison

James (Jimmy) Allen Pattison, CM, OBC, (born October 1, 1928 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan) is a Vancouver-based entrepreneur who is the chairman, president, CEO, and sole owner of the Jim Pattison Group. His company, the third largest privately held company in Canada owns numerous car dealerships, Overwaitea Foods and Save-On-Foods, Ripley's Believe It or Not!, and radio & TV stations in British Columbia and Alberta. He also owned the Vancouver Blazers of the World Hockey Association. Pattison helped organize Expo 86 in Vancouver, acting as the CEO and president of the Expo 86 Corporation. He is involved with the committee for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. On February 15 2008, Jim Pattison Group announced the purchase of the GWR organization, the company known for its Guiness World Record franchise. Aptly enough, its annual book, published in more than 100 countries in 37 languages, is the world's best-selling copyright book.

Pattison has been generous with his fortune, making many donations of $1 million or more to causes he supports.

Among other honours, Pattison is a recipient of both the Order of Canada and the Order of British Columbia. He was also listed as No. 178 on the 2008 Forbes list of the world's richest people.. He is also listed as the 6th richest Canadian.

Pattison, who owns 25% of the shares of Canfor, was recently embroiled in a bitter proxy fight with money manager Stephen A. Jarislowsky, whose firm owns 18%. Pattison won and ousted CEO Jim Shepherd over Canfor's poor performance and declining share price, replacing him for the interim with Jim Shepard.[2]

See also

• Lists of billionaires

Books

• Jimmy: An Autobiograpy by Jim Pattison and Paul Grescoe (Sept 1989)
• Pattison: Portrait of a capitalist superstar by Russell Kelly (Nov 1986)

External links

• Biography on the Order of British Columbia website.
• Entry on Order of Canada website.
• NNDB entry
• The Jim Pattison Group main website
• Jimmy got Mad

Multimedia

• CBC Archives - Jim Pattison and Expo 86 (from 1985).