Jimmy Pattison sits in his office anteroom, with its breathtaking view of Burrard Inlet and the mountains, and thinks of past B.C. grandees who commanded similarly splendid vistas.
He goes through the names -- MacMillans, Bentleys, Gibsons. They were "strong people in B.C.," the 76-year-old Mr. Pattison says, recalling the titans of his Vancouver boyhood. But now, like some rugged West Coast fir, Jimmy Pattison is the last great tycoon still standing in British Columbia.
When it is suggested that he has eclipsed all the others, Mr. Pattison slips for a moment into his aw-shucks persona: "I don't think so, but you can say what you want."
He won't say it but others in British Columbia will: As lesser magnates have come and gone, as industries have soared and dipped, and as head offices have left Vancouver, Mr. Pattison has kept widening the reach of his food-to-signs conglomerate, Jim Pattison Group.
"People with substantial spheres of influence in B.C. have diminished, while Jimmy has grown in stature," says investment banker Peter Brown, a friend of Mr. Pattison and a member of one of the old families.
Mr. Pattison is sometimes called the invisible billionaire for his simple tastes and populist touch, but there is nothing invisible about his presence in the lives of British Columbians -- or, indeed, Canadians.
His 50-per-cent ownership of Vancouver 24 Hours, a new giveaway newspaper, is a recent small extension of his tentacles. His Save-On, Overwaitea and other supermarkets constitute the largest B.C. grocery group. His Pattison signs are everywhere. He owns the most car dealerships in the province.
He is the largest magazine distributor in Canada, pushing a million magazines a week into the B.C. Lower Mainland alone. Over the past decade, he has emerged as the key deal maker in the B.C. forest industries.
He calls the shots that determine the livelihood of 24,000 British Columbians, about 13,000 of whom work in wholly owned companies, and the rest in firms where he is a significant shareholder. That makes him about the single biggest private employer in the province.
Mr. Brown, CEO of Canaccord Capital Corp., says there is only one B.C. figure who has rivalled Mr. Pattison in economic might -- H.R. MacMillan, who built the MacMillan Bloedel forestry empire from the 1920s to 1960s. But Mr. MacMillan lived through a time when forests contributed 20 to 50 cent of the provincial economy, compared with 8 per cent today. And MacMillan Bloedel was sold to U.S. giant Weyerhaeuser Co. in 1999.
In fact, building a company to sell it has been a dominant theme among B.C. entrepreneurs, says Art Phillips, a retired investment manager and former Vancouver mayor. That impulse, he says, was born of the old Vancouver Stock Exchange mentality, which assumed that ventures were built to run the stock price up and cash out -- which is why Vancouver has so few corporate head offices, he says, while nearby Seattle has bred Starbucks, Microsoft and many others.
Mr. Pattison's enduring influence, he says, reflects his independence from that ethos, and his instinct for being a long-term operator. Mr. Phillips says one B.C. company with similar traits is privately held H. Y. Louie Co., owner of London Drugs and IGA stores. But Pattison Group is a continental force that grosses $5.7-billion a year, contains $3.3-billion in assets and employs 28,000 people in total, in businesses ranging from entertainment (Ripley's Believe it or Not!) to fish (the largest processor of Pacific salmon.)
There is understandable speculation about how long Mr. Pattison can manage all this. He has slowed down a little, but is still on the road about 200 days a year. In Vancouver, he works at least 12 hours on weekdays, slightly less on weekends.
Only a few confidants know the fate of those holdings after he is gone. Mr. Pattison says he has a succession plan but he isn't saying what's in it. He has, however, indicated that he does not intend to transfer operation of his empire to his three children and his eight grandchildren.
In his view, Pattison Group is not the kind of business that can be passed down to family members. It is not a single kind of property, like a factory or store, but a way of thinking about diverse assets that is disciplined and opportunistic.
What he does disclose is that there would be no need to dismantle his vast holdings. "If I don't make it home tonight, nothing has to be sold, and we're in good shape for succession -- but we don't talk about it," he says.
Mr. Phillips says Mr. Pattison may hand more authority to his board of directors, which now has a largely advisory role. He also suggests that, in time, he or his successor could take the company public.
That IPO would encompass an empire that is aggressively buying U.S. assets, but still has more than 60 per cent of its business in Canada. It has no vertical integration. In the early years, the companies shared a strong sales orientation, reflecting the boss's car salesman roots; today, the common thread seems to be timely purchases at cheap prices.
In the eighties, for example, he bought a run-down chain of amusement parks, the Ripley's franchise, which is now a cash-spinner and is building a $200-million facility in Niagara Falls, Ont.
It is the largest shareholder, with almost 20 per cent, of Canfor Corp., the continent's second-largest producer of lumber, which suggests a deviation from Mr. Pattison's preference for non-cyclical businesses.
But he counters that he bought those assets when the price was very attractive. Others say he saw an opportunity in forestry consolidation, which he personally engineered through the 2004 merger of Canfor and Slocan, both of whose shares he had been accumulating.
The group's collection of unrelated units could probably only be achieved today in a private company. Publicly traded conglomerates tend to be punished by stock markets that prefer a clear focus.
Private equity investors have emerged as a new form of conglomerate. But Nick Geer, a Vancouver businessman who worked for Mr. Pattison for 19 years, says private equity funds always have an eye on exiting. Mr. Pattison owns to operate, and sells only when the economics turn against him.
He gives his unit managers a rare autonomy -- as Mr. Geer learned when he joined the group as a tax specialist in 1981 and called up the group presidents to talk about their businesses. He was gently chastised by Mr. Pattison: "Nick, you don't phone them. If they want your help, they'll phone you."
The value Mr. Pattison brings is the clout of a large corporate balance sheet, and a reporting discipline that demands that, each quarter, the managers present their business plans to the boss.
Through all its growth, Pattison Group remains a minor player outside North America. Vancouver venture capitalist Robin Louis also doesn't see Mr. Pattison in the tech sector. "It's not that he's stuck in the Old Economy. He's just an investor on the fundamentals, like Warren Buffett," says Mr. Louis, president of Ventures West Management Inc.
As with Mr. Buffett, it is hard to see the company surviving its owner in exactly the same form. It would rely on the continuity of his senior management team, in which a key player is deal maker and vice-chairman Michael Korenberg.
"It takes a different skill to run a diversified company," Mr. Pattison says. "We know a little bit about a lot, but not a lot about much."
Jimmy Pattison's empire
Jim Pattison Group contains a range of businesses, from fish processing operations to aquariums
Overwaitea Food Group: A major supermarket operator in British Columbia and Alberta, with Save-On, Overwaitea, Cooper's Foods, Urban Fare, Bulkley Valley Wholesale and PriceSmart Foods.
Buy-Low Foods: Canada's largest food wholesaler to independent grocers.
Canadian Fishing Co.: Canada's largest processor of wild Pacific salmon and herring roe, under Gold Seal, Tea Rose and other labels.
Ripley Entertainment: Runs about 50 tourist attractions, mostly under Ripley's Believe It or Not!
Pattison Sign Group: A major North American maker of signs
Pattison Outdoor: Second-largest Canadian outdoor advertising firm.
Jim Pattison Packaging Group: Several specialized packaging units.
Jim Pattison News Group: North America's second-largest magazine and book wholesaler, and the largest in Canada.
Jim Pattison Auto Group: The largest auto retailer in British Columbia. Also owns a leasing affiliate.
Jim Pattison Broadcast Group: Twenty radio and three TV stations in British Columbia and Alberta.
Westshore Terminals: A major West Coast coal-shipping facility, managed by a Pattison affiliate and owned 20 per cent by Pattison Group through an income trust.
Canfor Corp.: Owns about 20 per cent of Canada's largest lumber supplier and North America's second-largest.
Sun-Rype Products Ltd.: Owns 25 per cent of fruit-based food and beverage maker in Kelowna.
Investments: Trades in about 25 marketable securities, using surplus cash.