Gerald Schwartz: The man behind Onex and the West Jet deal

WINNIPEG — The wealthy Canadian behind a deal to buy WestJet has a reputation for his stellar business acumen and owning a mansion among mansions in downtown Toronto, but a longtime family friend says the titan has not forgotten his humbler beginnings.

On Monday it was announced that the Toronto-based private equity firm Onex Corp. signed a deal to buy the Calgary-based airline for $3.5 billion. The man behind the yoke of the massive transaction for Onex is its 77-year-old founder and chief executive officer, Gerald Schwartz.

“Even though he’s been in Toronto now for probably a majority of his life, I don’t think he’s ever lost that sense of being a Winnipegger,” said David Asper. 

Asper is the son of Izzy Asper, who founded CanWest Capital with Schwartz in the 1970s. Asper remembers meeting Schwartz when the now famous financier was articling under his father in the 1960s.

“I have vivid memories of Gerry as a young man who started working for my dad and he was a fantastic character and he would come over and do magic tricks and entertain us,” Asper said.

“He was very vivacious and loved to laugh and was full of life.”

Along with his wife, Heather Reisman — the founder and CEO of Indigo Books and Music — and the couple’s children, Schwartz is a member of one of Canada’s richest families.

He has an almost incomparable reputation for business — Onex is considered a global force in private equity — and for philanthropy, donating millions to universities and hospitals.

He’s been inducted into the Canadian Business Hall of Fame and is an officer of the Order of Canada.

The couple’s home in Toronto’s Rosedale neighbourhood, nicknamed “Fort Schwartz,” has a reputation as possibly the most expensive in the city.

It’s all worlds away from Schwartz’s formative years in Winnipeg, Asper said with a laugh.

Schwartz was born in the Prairie city in 1941. In an online video from when he accepted the 2016 Horatio Alger Award, he explained how his mother was deaf, which resulted in her being very distant. But he was extremely close with his father, a local businessman and auto-parts dealer.

“My dad was a fantastic guy who I looked up to, admired and loved,” Schwartz said in the video, adding his dad “came from much more humble beginnings, he worked his way up.”

Schwartz worked in his father’s store starting when he was 10. He earned commerce and law degrees from the University of Manitoba, and later pursed a Master of Business Administration from Harvard University.

His goal was to get to Wall Street, Schwartz told students at the University of Toronto during a speech in 2016. But things didn’t go according to plan.

“A successful career doesn’t have to follow a straight line,” he said. “You can afford to make choices that turn out to be serious mistakes and time will let you correct the trajectory that you want to be on.”

In 1977, at age 35, Schwartz and Izzy Asper formed CanWest Capital in Winnipeg. By 1984, that partnership was dissolved, and Schwartz took his portion of the industrial assets to start Onex.

Asper said the mutual respect both men had for each other in business — and as friends — was maintained.

Schwartz’s worth has grown steadily. He’s one of 45 Canadians to make Forbes list of billionaires in 2019, with his net worth pegged by the magazine at $1.6 billion. Onex boasts $33 billion in assets, Forbes says. 

Inside the boardroom, Asper said Schwartz is inquisitive, patient and smart. He’s also willing to share knowledge he’s accrued over the decades, Asper added.

“The powerful legacy I think of Gerry, over the course of his life to this day, is that he actually inspires people to think big, to think critically and to have confidence to pursue what it is you are pursuing.”

Kelly Geraldine Malone, The Canadian Press